Mercy & Grace

It’s always interesting to me how God brings things to my attention. Sometimes it’s subtle and other times it’s like a huge bomb going off. This time there was no bomb, it was a slow creeping vine that wound its way into my life.

For a year and a half, there have been little ones in our home. Four very precious little people. And what a learning process it has been. I have changed diapers, made bottles, heated up countless chicken nuggets, walked and rocked and cuddled restless babies. Through it all we’ve dealt with the stories that come attached to these little ones. Stories of drug abuse, domestic violence and craziness(sometimes literally). It’s hard, when we hear these stories, to not get angry. How can these people not want their child? How do they justify the situations that they put their kids in? Why do the little ones have to suffer because their parents, the people that are supposed to protect them from things, can’t seem to move beyond their own selfishness? 

I don’t understand. I’m not like them. 

But I am. I am a human being. I am selfish. I am a sinner, broken. Completely broken. But I’m not like them because I have something that they don’t. I have hope, redemption, freedom. 

I have Jesus. 

Maybe that’s too simplistic but it’s the honest to goodness truth. I’m a sinner but He removes that sin. I am selfish but He makes me look outside of myself. I am broken and He makes me whole. But our world isn’t whole.

 I spent 11 days in a mud hut, living life with the poorest of the poor and I didn’t see it. I was in the Ninth Ward after Katrina hit and I missed it. It took a piece of paper with the word “License” on it. It took special investigators, caseworkers, CASA and judges for me to finally see. 

Our world is broken. So VERY broken. How did I miss it? Our world needs Jesus. It needs grace and truth and mercy. 

I came across a blog that was talking about a girl that had run away from home because of how bad her home life was. In her mind, the streets were a better place to be than at home. The police cannot find her and because of where they live, they are most certain she has become a part of the sex industry. The blogger wrote this:

“Please remember, when you think of girls like her, that poverty is more than a lack of money, that they do not know the world as we know it, that they don’t have the resources to make wise choices as we might be able.  Have mercy.  Please, have mercy.”

It’s so easy for me to judge. It’s easy for me to get angry. That is what God has slowly been teaching me. My reaction shouldn’t be anger or judgment. It should be mercy and grace. It should be a desire to love these parents as much as I love their little ones. I should want them to know my Jesus as much as I want those precious babies to know Him. Slowly, slowly I’m beginning to understand what that means. Very. Slowly.

I still get angry when a mom says she doesn’t want her baby or when she’s not willing to walk away from drugs or a violent boyfriend to get her baby back. I want to shake some sense into them. Sometimes, I even want to yell at them. 

Instead, I take a deep breath. Instead, I have to remember to cover them in prayer, in mercy and in grace.