Radical Grace

You are a sinner of the worst order. Your pride is off the charts, yet your insecurities drive you to insanity. You lie to improve your status, and steal to improve your bottom line. You murder the first person to question your value, and you sleep with anyone for money (either yours or theirs.) But really, you never sleep. You can’t. Your atrocities replay themselves like infinite, unquenchable echoes. Your eyes burn, and your lungs itch. Yet your pervasive obsession is gratification, not relief.

Many times you thought your darkness was complete. But now it is.

Until a soft breath touches your broken frame. Your nerves shift from numbness to pain, from pain to unease. The shadows escape. A heart beats next to yours and, through the fog of despair you begin to understand.

You’re being redeemed.

As the air clears, there rest two magnificent eyes, reflecting your own. But these are eyes of radical grace. Not of pity, or naivete. You can feel their unwavering gaze travel through your mind, through your heart, through your gut. Your hands are lifted, and you see two matching rings. You feel strength enough now to speak, but after two words, you are limp again.

“I surrender.”

There is a sharp awareness that you are now engaged to your redeemer. Love has pulled you out of darkness, and made you its own. Your unease melts away, and is replaced by a deep, deep peace.

“Will you be here tomorrow?”

“I am with you forever.”

“Wow…. Well, can I pencil you in again for this time next week? Maybe for an hour or two in the morning? We’ll do brunch! Until then, I’ve got my lifestyle to think about.”

How quickly we forget the matchless love of Christ, and the constant life it compels us to live.

Lord, have mercy.