The Practice of Receiving a Different Kind of Miracle

Monday morning I woke thinking it would be like any other typical day. I took my children to the bus stop, we prayed for the day, and then I drove off in my 2005 Honda Pilot to Starbucks. When I was just about there, I noticed white steam had started rising out of the top of my car and a horrible putrid smell assaulted me. My heart skipped a beat.

I parked my car, figured out how to get the top open. Steam was still rising and making a terrible hissing sound. Before panicking, I decided I had better get my coffee. Whatever was going on demanded caffeine. My Starbucks friends told me where to take the car.

I managed to get it to an automative shop, where very nice men told me my car needed a new water pump. To install a new water pump they’d have to remove the entire motor. I asked if this was absolutely necessary or if I could go around with a leaking water pump indefinitely. They said it was necessary. But they were booked out till June. As a woman who spends most of her free time driving her children around to various events, I need a car.

We found another automotive place.

I had my car towed.

Thankfully, the warranty I bought for my car, the one I purchased against my better judgement, is going to cover the new water pump. But true to form, my Honda needs more than a water pump. I need a timing belt now, too. For crying out loud. I bought a Honda! A stable, sturdy Honda. I bought the most reliable car I knew of, just so my car wouldn’t break down …

This reminds me a lot of my life.

In my youth, I did everything they told me to do. I read my Bible, studied at a Christian University, virgin till marriage, vocational ministry, overseas missions. And yet, my life still crumbled like a sand castle when the waves hit and crashed against it. That’s because all the things I did were not the works one must do to be saved … which means, while those things were good and had value to them, there was no secure outcome in doing them. The things I did never promised  a white-picked fence perfect life of safety and innocence.

Christianity is an in the trenches, grace-for-the-needy-destitute-and-desperate kind of faith. It’s not a clear cut black and white, do-this and it will all work out kind of list of rules to follow. Christianity is not buying a Honda. Besides, even Hondas break down, or so we’ve discovered.

Jesus told the people to build their house on the rock, because when the storms come …  emphasis on when.

I had this picture in my mind for most of my life of a fairy-tale ending, the give your life to Jesus, pray the prayer, put all your eggs in His basket and it will all work out. Which is true. And it is false. It will work out, but not always as you expect it to. God is not accountable to our life choices in the way we think. Simply because we love God doesn’t mean God is required to give us our proposed outcome.

I really don’t like having to come to terms with this truth. But, in the middle of it all… I’m learning something new …  My friend John says sometimes God does a different kind of miracle. 

With God, it’s a relationship of upside down goodness, a life of the weak being strong, the poor rich, the shattered somehow held together by a great and overwhelming love. It’s a relationship that is counterintuitive on every side.

I walked out of my marriage for reasons I think were necessary, and my children’s heart’s broke. I can’t undo that. I can’t wrap all this up and with some pretty ribbon. I have to accept that sometimes life is absolutely devastating and the miracle is that there is grace to receive. God tenderly calls the little children and God is with the brokenhearted.

For a long time I tried to absorb the losses on my own, but it became too much to bear. So, I finally did the most honest thing I knew to do. I let go. I gave up. I surrendered and stopped making poor attempts at holding everything together, so I could let God hold me. 

Now, I see life differently. I feel compassion and ache for people in new ways. I fell off the hero’s platform, the have-it-all-together life that maybe even I tried to believe. I never had it all together. No one does. We are humans who need God. Finding God doesn’t mean you no longer need him because you have some nice set of rules you can live by. It’s all grace from start to finish. There is no prescription to make it perfect. It’s ALL mercy.

Jesus stepped down and lived it all. He LOVES me and opens up a life, a way that is all about a rule of love. a rule of love that says it’s absolutely okay for me to need God and admit it everywhere I go. That’s the news. He sees me and cares about my broken heart and shattered dreams. He cares about my children and will restore and help them in a way I was powerless to do. He will wipe away every tear.

God doesn’t ask us to have it all together, or to be all together. Jesus says come, follow me … it won’t be an easy road, there may even be some persecution involved. But I promise if you come to me, you’ll find the life you never knew you always wanted: An honest life, a real life. A life drenched in mercy.

In finding God, we learn that the miracle isn’t that bad things don’t happen, or that everything goes as we had hoped.

Even if you buy a Honda and do everything they tell you do. Things still break. So, I’m learning the practice of a receiving a different kind of miracle.

It’s called the miracle of grace.