Grace Upon Grace

I may have mentioned this a time or two but I love to be right. In addition to loving rightness, I also really love my feelings. The good feelings, the bad ones, the ugly ones. I am the proud owner of BIG feelings that I share with you whether you like them or not. It's okay if you don't. I like them enough for the both of us. I love my feelings so much that I allow them to dictate my entire life. This mostly works well for me because the good ones prompt empathy and the bad ones pass rather quickly. For me, at least. Sometimes the effects of things I said when I was all up in my big, bad feelings linger for longer than I actually felt them.

 I read on the internet somewhere, sometime, a blogger say "I've never taken a high road in my entire life."

 I was convinced she was talking about me.
 I, too, have never taken a high road in my entire life.

I am convinced that there's nothing to be had on the high road but a bunch of swallowed words and feelings put in boxes with lids taped shut. The high road is full of political correctness and people who use their turn signals because they are considerate of the other drivers on the high road and they all go the speed limit or below because the high road is littered with all of those taped boxes that must be avoided at all costs.

I have always preferred the low road where the signs prominently display the F bomb, the billboards are full of birds (and not the kind that chirp beautiful melodies in the morning), no one uses their turn signals because frankly, my dear, we don't give a damn. We speed through life hurling our feelings and our swear words out the window when the other drivers get in our way. Everyone drives like they're on the Autobahn because nobody is the boss of us, especially not those mother effing speed limit signs that try to tell us to slow down and consider what will happen when the jackass up ahead slams on brakes and there's no way to avoid the inferno. We'd rather sit around the flames and hurl more big feelings at the hapless bystanders-probably the ones from the high road who carry tools and nonsense to extinguish the fire of our rage.

Someone said to me once that she likes to roast marshmallows over the fires of her burning bridges and I almost snorted Coke (the brown liquid kind; the white powder is not my thing) through my nose. There have been very few sentences ever spoken that I have identified with more than that one. 

Somehow, despite my propensity for bad words, bad attitudes and bad feelings, nearly all of my close friends drive the speed limit on the high road and they only ever get down in the trenches when it's time to rescue me, which they surely pay the price for. 

To an outsider it would seem that they give me too much grace and none of it I deserve. And how could I blame a person for thinking they know that with certainty? I love to say what I think first and then filter it or apologize later. Only after I've given my big feelings a voice do I also give rational thinking a chance to be heard. But the reality is that we all get more grace than we deserve everyday. And thank God, literally, that we get that cup filled every single morning and it is enough to sustain us each and every day because I don't know of anyone who is pouring it out to herself. 

photo credit

We'd all do good to give ourselves grace abundantly but the reality is that this life is hard, whether you drive on the high road or the low road. We're all just trying to work out our feelings, whether we package them neatly or we hurl them in a wad out the window. There is plenty of litter to avoid on this road and there are plenty of times the birds that sing beautiful melodies in the morning relieve themselves on your windshield. It is our greatest gift that even after a day spent swerving around all of the litter and trying to see past all of the bird shit on the glass, every single morning, the windshield is wiped clean and a cleaning crew has picked up the trash so we can do it all over again. The greatest gift of our lives is that this angelic cleaning crew expects no thanks for doing their messy job, though perhaps the most incredible thank yous look like a little midday windshield cleaning of a fellow human. 

Maybe the most perceptible nod to the original Giver of Grace is when we follow His example and give it to the people who look like they deserve it the least. Maybe then, in the gifting of abundant, undeserved grace, we say to Jesus "Your blood and humiliation wasn't all for naught because I recognize the price you paid and I recognize that it won't cost me nearly as much to regift it to someone else." Some of the smartest women I know have already figured out these truths and they live them well. I have much to learn.