I find myself so angry. I’ve never thought of myself as an angry person, but in the last few weeks I have felt it rise up in me hot and combative, bubbling over with the bitterness and the frustration.
I know where it comes from. I am not angry because the situation warrants it. I am not angry because I am exhausted and over this situation and this person. I am angry because it is easier to be angry than to be hurt.
So I write a thousand emails and texts that never get sent.
Words that assault and cut, a small taste of the emotional abuse I feel I’ve endured. For a moment, I get
relief. I imagine the apology that maybe I’d get if I were to press send. Or
maybe the argument that might proceed-a longer podium to vent my frustrations at this person. Or maybe just the pain I
would cause them.
I imagine how I would
feel better.But the drafts always get deleted. The vindictive fantasies never acted out.
This anger, warranted or not, is selfish. This anger is
pride. This anger cares only about winning-a consolation prize to the broken
woman it foolishly tries to defend. This anger doesn’t count up the cost of its
retaliation against the perpetrator- the perpetrator that happens also to be a
sibling in Christ.
What this anger fails to realize, though, in its heated
madness, is that Someone else has already counted up the cost. Not just the
cost to my currently not very Christ-like sibling in Christ, but also to me. He
knows how corrosive it is-this resentment and indignation, how much it would
destroy me if I didn’t have a Savior. But I do and He extends out his pierced
hands as proof that not only has He counted up the cost, but has paid it in
full.
And I am humbled.
Certainly I can see how not like Christ this person has been
toward me, but now I am forced to read those unsent messages for what they are: a revelation
of the state of my own heart-so short of the One whom I am to imitate. My soul
cries out for the forgiveness of the One who never withholds grace and He so
readily supplies it. My ugly heart begins to transform, little by little, as
His light penetrates, refines, makes new.
And while I would love to bask in the beauty of
regeneration, I know that it cannot stop there. I must love as He has loved me.
It’s a command and not a request, but His yoke is easy and His burden light. He
calls me out, asks me to deny my flesh, to show grace.
So I don’t press send. I pray for my sibling in Christ. I am
kind. I show mercy. I am not always perfect at it. I am more than aware that I
cannot do it alone. I daily must offer it on the altar of sacrifice.
But I show grace.
This might never end in some beautiful story of
reconciliation. It might not ever matter to the recipient. I might not ever
fully understand why I must do it. I might not ever have the answers.
But I show grace.
If there is one thing I have learned from my Savior it is
this: costly grace is the only kind of grace that matters.
And so I show grace.
