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GRACE Part 1

Grace is a covering NOT a doormat.

Are you in a great relationship or a messy one?  If you’re in a GREAT relationship I would like to know your thoughts on my musings and if they are are helpful to you.  If you’re in a messy relationship, READ ON.

We all cover the dirt to make ourselves look good.  We cover our dirty walls with paint, our floors with carpeting and our sins and pains with a smile.  And that’s all right and good because accidents happen. We all make mistakes and others make mistakes that have an effect on us.  The people we love (and are SUPPOSED to love) will make mistakes and we SHOULD cover it up–give them GRACE. That way we BOTH look good.

But what about when it gets messy?  I mean REALLY messy. What if the person who loves me (or is SUPPOSED to love me) has such an effect on me that I no longer look good…but THEY DO?  May I offer–THAT is NOT grace. That is being a doormat.

Grace is something that is OFFERED not TAKEN.

Grace covers up a stain, a sin, a wrongdoing and GRACE looks good on the outside.  It’s clean, bright and shiny. People walk by and say “Oh, that looks so good!” The problem or dirt is still there but to those on the outside, it can’t be seen.

A doormat, however is filthy.  People wipe their feet on it and the dirt is left there and now, their feet are clean and THEY look good but the doormat doesn’t.   Wiping one’s feet on a doormat that’s just laying there, also, is something that THEY take-they do. The doormat has no reaction. The covering of GRACE must be lifted by the giver.   Not the doormat. The doormat is stagnant and just lays there getting dirtier and dirtier. And has anyone ever cleaned a doormat? Of course not. When it’s dirty and tattered enough, it just gets thrown out.

Is there a fine line between offering grace and turning into a doormat?  You BET! And why is that? I would love to hear your thoughts if you have ever crossed the line of consistently offering grace but then turning into a doormat.

I have but one projection to offer. Which will be coming in part 2.  It is rooted in the scripture from Galatians 5:22.

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A Psalm of Life

by, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882_

What the heart of the the young man said to the psalmist

Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
     Life is but an empty dream!
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
     And things are not what they seem.

Life is real! Life is earnest!
     And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
     Was not spoken of the soul.

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
     Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each to-morrow
     Find us farther than to-day.

Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
     And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
     Funeral marches to the grave.

In the world's broad field of battle,
     In the bivouac of Life,
Be not the dumb, driven cattle!
     Be a hero in the strife!

Trust no Future, howe'er pleasant!
     Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act,-act in the living Present!
     heart within, and God o'er head!

Lives of great men all remind us
     We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
     Footprints on the sands of time;

Footprints, that perhaps another,
     Sailing o'er life's solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
     Seeing, shall take heart again.

Let us, then, be up and doing,
     With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
     Learn to labor and to waid.