Grace Intersect

I was beginning to imagine his insulting response. The class was utterly silent and it seemed like the full weight of his scornful reply would be felt that much more. Finally, he spoke. Just one word: “absolutely”.

I knew, if there was any chance at all for us to get back together, it was now or never. As we slowly rode toward the meeting place, I gently placed my right hand on her left knee and said to her, Paula, I love you. Nothing like putting her on the spot. After a brief pause she said, I know. Someday I’ll know what to do with that.

Paula: Just because we're Christians, doesn't mean we don't feel the full impact of traumatic experiences. And what I was walking out on a daily basis was wondering if I would have you the next day or the next week. I remember trying so hard and asking God often. I don't want to look back and have squandered all this time by only being sad. I want to embrace every sweet moment that I can have with my husband right now.

Paula: I think the podcast that begun this series of conversations that we've been having, you were talking about the heart attack in 2017. And you said that I received a phone call and I was left hanging and that I would get to tell my story one of these days. So I guess that's today.

Yep. I left you hanging on a very short call. And all you knew is that there was something serious going on again.

Paula: Yeah, I was with my friend Maria.

Oh, it's so crazy. It's not like God was sitting there smacking his head going, really? What are you thinking? I think that's how we look at ourselves. We put that pressure on ourselves. But God's not doing that. He's just kind of like, well, I knew this was your process, and I got all the time that you need.

History is a great teacher--if we are willing to be students. In the last episode of Grace Intersect, my wife, Paula, was left hanging on the other end of a very brief phone call--a call she always knew could come, yet trying to live as if it wouldn’t. The lessons of history, when learned, are hard to ignore.

I had to make a decision. Did I try to stay alive, or let the darkness consume me? I thought if I could somehow find the strength to open my eyes, I would live. If I chose to not open my eyes, my body and life would be covered with the blackness from which there would be no recovery in this life.

 . . . after I got in trouble, though, it was a, it was the realization that . . . more that I was OK, not that it was OK that I did that, but I was OK. That God loved me. He met me where I was in that jail cell. He . . . the grace was again overwhelming and it provided that launch pad for me to move past guilt and shame and holding that anger. And I could move on and . . .

This was an attempt to mix ingredients of the law into the provision of grace. To do this indicates a very poor understanding of God's grace. For some reason, it seems like God’s grace is so very hard to wrap our heads around. We, as humans, are wired for qualifying and quantifying. Almost all aspects of life are charted and measured. So, it is very natural for us to think that, even when it comes to grace, there must be things that require measuring the quality and quantity.

In the early to mid-seventies, when I was in my mid-twenties, I had occasion to attend a screening of a movie called Marjoe at California State University, Sacramento. It was a documentary of a child evangelist who, in his twenties decided to expose his experience of manipulation in the Pentecostal movement. It was introduced by Marjoe, himself.

What impacted me while watching the movie were feelings of anger, shame, embarrassment, and frustration. My church roots allowed me to picture myself at some of his events. The tent revivals and sawdust trail were familiar to me.