My super young (no age to protect her innocence ) at heart relative called me today, we talk at least once a month about various issues, sometimes cry, sometimes laugh, usually both, and I feel so blessed to have her.

See, her story, just like all stories, has its share of violence, but she abounds in grace. This phrase is stolen from a dear professor of mine from my undergrad days, who needed to show a conservative Bible school that it wasn't just about memorzing theology and verses, but that story is what shapes who we are.

So, she had a literature course that dedicated itself to the theme of violence and grace. Those of us who took it drank it in like water from a fire hose and some of the themes I learned almost 30 years ago, echo in my mind time and time again.

These moments of violence, be they true violence like disaster, destruction, crime and more, or violence of the heart and emotions, are evil. Being unkind is just as evil as other bits of evil you can imagine, as bones and bodies can heal, but hearts and minds take a lot longer.

We didn't talk about it then, but now we know that emotional and psychological abuse can manifest physically, and what we used to call stress, is much much much deeper.

But I digress, and what I want to talk about, is being full of grace. Going back to definitions of words, Miriam Webster states

What is the closest meaning of grace?

Some common synonyms of grace are charity, clemency, leniency, and mercy. While all these words mean "a disposition to show kindness or compassion," grace implies a benign attitude and a willingness to grant favors or make concessions.

When we as people experience violence, we can go towards violence and become abusers, or we can be filled with grace-charity, compassion, mercy, and leniency. We can show kindness or compassion to ourselves and others, or we can choose violence and evil and the opposite, hate, bile, bitterness, and unforgiveness.

What I find myself grieved in this conversation today, is that my most amazing spicy relative, who walks in Grace and Mercy and Clemency and Charity, has experienced the exact opposite with people she least expected it from. I too understand what she is going through, and she does feel my empathy and so calls to bitch. Yeah, I said it, bitch.

And now it is a few days later, and we talk again. Perhaps certain things are resolved, but they are still ongoing. My heart is still grieved but I come again to sit, to pray, to meditate, and I realize, as does she, that sometimes we cannot do anything. 

Much like David pursued by Saul, we will not seek revenge. We have opportunities to choose violence, to be unkind, and to try and control situations we cannot or better yet put, should not. Sometimes we must sit in the back of the cave and realize how much damage we could do, and instead choose not to.

It would be nice to react like Peter, and cut off ears, but instead we serve a Savior that picks those broken, shorn off parts, and without a whimper heals and makes them whole again.

It would be amazing to ride out with swords and guns a blazing and point all the fingers and say YOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU. But we serve a God who stopped pointing fingers, and told us to lay down the sword, and instead, gave himself up and died for us, His friends.

And for a final thought, he calls us his friends. We no longer have to try and wrap ourselves in the rules of right standing before God, because he forgave, he loved, and he told us to

Love God

and Love Each other

and remember this so much, that He gave us His son. And to exist in this love.

Heal

Forgive

Be Kind

and remember his Kingdom does not look anything like what we think it does. But instead means that we eat at the Kings table.