The Calisthenics of Grace

I hate to admit it, but I am a slow learner.  I have to spend a lot of time chewing over an issue, considering all sides, pondering the pros and cons, weighing the options.  I am a painfully slow learner.  But I keep telling myself that it’s okay that it takes me a long time to come to conclusions as long as I am willing to keep trying.  “The victory is in the struggle!” I say to myself, especially when I feel bad for being so doggedly deliberate.  I think too much, my husband says, and sometimes that gets in my way.  When Chad taught me to waterski, he said he could see me out there, bobbing like a cork with thoughts churning away…so he said, “I just decided to outsmart you and yank you out of the water.”  He did.  Thanks to him I finally learned to ski.  Never mind that it took me something like 5 years to learn to cross the wake.  I get stuck in my head a lot.

Last summer I endeavored to quit with the slow, painful, inch-by-inch submersion into the lake.  Of course, my friends think it’s hysterical to watch me creep down our boat’s ladder into Coeur d’Alene Lake…feet….knees…(insert mild whining)…waist…bellybutton…(insert squealing)…torso…(insert giant pause followed by lots of “encouragement” from my friends to “just get in already!”)…then the final drop into the water (punctuated by lots and lots of whining).  Well, last summer the water was perpetually cold, and so I decided to stop with the nonsense and just stand on the platform and jump.  (Admittedly, I stand on the platform for an inordinate amount of time, imitating that scene from “National Lampoon’s Vacation” when Clark W. Griswold prepares to jump into the pool with the ever-beautiful Christy Brinkley.  “This is crazy, this is crazy,” he states as he claps his hands together before taking the plunge).  This summer I jumped in every time.

Taking that plunge is both terrifying and exhilarating.  And might I add empowering? 

Well today I took a different sort of plunge. I am typically a peace-seeking individual.  I don’t like to cause people hard feelings, and I don’t like confrontation.  I am an acrobat when it comes to avoiding conflict.  And generally speaking I think this is a good thing.  Far better to avoid hurting feelings than to inadvertently step all over someone.  Plus, as I already admitted, it takes me a while to formulate my thoughts, and I don’t like doing or saying things I might regret later.  So when someone did a tap dance on my feelings the other day at work (not to mention the feelings of a dear friend/colleague in the process), I realized that my old status quo approach was insufficient. 

But I must pause for a second.  Another thing you need to know about me is that I have been in a very interesting, year-long struggle with the concept of grace.  The question I am wrestling with is this:  “What does God’s grace look like in the everyday world?”  I know what it looks like in the grand scheme (take a look at the cross and you will see all you need on that subject), but what does everyday, grocery store grace look like?  Another question that plagues me is this:  Where does grace run up against the boundaries of injustice?  How does one balance grace with its imposter cousin the doormat?  I know a thing or two about doormats…in the past I willingly threw myself on the threshold of many a relationship, and I rather dislike the taste of shoe soles in my mouth.   So I’ve been on a quest to understand the difference between the two, and to see what genuine day-to-day grace looks like. 

Today I was given the opportunity to practice plunging into the practice of grace.  Without getting into the details (believe me, the details aren’t that interesting, anyway), a fellow colleague inadvertently insulted me and my teacher friend.  He insulted our intelligence, relevance, and our hard work.  Because I view this colleague as a friend, the blow hit hard and deep.  I carried a knot in my stomach for the rest of the day.  But I knew that I needed to talk with him about it because I didn’t want the static to corrupt our working relationship.  So I asked if we could meet up at lunch.  My primary goal was to let him know that what he did was hurtful and unprofessional.  And with my heart banging in my chest (and a Chevy Chase voice saying, “This is crazy, this is crazy…”) I entered the classroom for our lunchtime conversation. 

Where did grace come into the picture?  It came with my other primary goal:  To preserve our friendship and find resolution.  So I swallowed the frog in my throat and opened up the conversation and, after listening to his opinions and giving him time to say his piece, I told him that I appreciated our open dialogue, but hated the way he handled the situation the day before.  I told him, as I desperately controlled the quiver in my voice, that what he had done was incredibly hurtful. 

He was genuinely mortified that he had caused hurt feelings.  And I absolutely believe him.  He said he thought he was being funny, but realized that it came across on paper with a completely different tone.  We finished our meeting with the utmost professionalism, a dinged friendship polished and repaired, a knot in my stomach unraveled. 

For some, this little victory might not seem like much, but for me this was akin to David facing Goliath.  My Goliath is clothed in fear.  My Goliath wields a very mighty club called self-doubt.  Today I overcame this tyrant with a little rock called faith.  A few hours before our meeting, while my stomach was still churning, a thought took shape in my mind.  I am certain that this thought was a gift directly from the Holy Spirit Himself.  I now offer that gift to you. I realize that I tend to see the world through black-and-white lenses.  Success.  Failure.  Good.  Bad.  Instead of these absolutes, this morning a thought came to light:  I need to see each of these challenges not as a success or failure, but as exercise.   Today God offered me some calisthenics in the form of a dreaded meeting that I faced head-on and with a heart bent on restoration.  The calisthenics of grace.

If this is what grace feels like, I guess I should look forward to the next time I get to slap on my headband and leotard and work it out.