I just stood there praying that God would help me to handle
whatever reaction I was going to get. The silence was screaming and my heart
was giving me the pounding I so deserved on the outside. I am too old to be making these kind of
mistakes. I not only know better but I teach to do better. That would be a later conversation between myself
and God. Maybe he too was embarrassed I said his name and posted his verses and
continued to fall flat on my face every turn I made. Right now my public life
is not matching up with my private life and I am broken.
I am waiting for Barney to respond and my head is lowered and
it my heart is so heavy. “Lord help me
not to be defensive or make excuses or any sort of justification”. Barney leans towards me and lifts my chin,
puts his hands gently on the back of my neck and pulls me in and says,“I am
standing here praying and asking God to give me the response he would give and
the words to the song Forgiveness are playing over and over in my head. I can’t
hate you and I can’t be mad at you. I
forgive you and I love you and I can see that you are hurting.”
He’s holding me and I am the one that hurt him. I can’t
fathom it and it would have been easier had he lost his cool or told me I took
it too far this time. I would have understood if he packed his bag and slept
somewhere else for the night or the rest of his life. He could have asked me to
create a sign and write “Hello My name is Christi Miller and I am a phony,
walking hypocrite” to put on facebook or stand on the court house lawn to
absorb the ridicule I deserved. Instead he handed me Mercy and he held me with
Grace and then he wept over me. That moment will be forever etched in my heart.
A few years ago I called my dad to tell him I was working on
getting the money that I owed him when we went through our own financial hell.
It’s a substantial amount. Humiliation and shame don’t cover the emotions I
went through. It had been eating at us and we didn’t want him to think we didn’t
remember we had a debt to pay. “Christi, it’s canceled. It’s gone. You don’t
owe me any money. Consider it paid. I love you guys.” When I first called to
tell him we were in trouble he sent me an email that I still have. He too had
been there and he promised we would make it through. He never judged me. I am
sure I wore out my welcome but he never said. I stopped by every night on my
way home because I was safe from the accuser in my head when dad was there.
When I couldn’t go one more day and thought the bottom would surely fall out he
called me and read these verses he found
for me:
2 Remember how the
Lord your God led you all the way in the wilderness these forty years,
to humble and test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not
you would keep his commands. 3 He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding
you with manna, which neither you nor your ancestors had known, to teach you
that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the
mouth of the Lord. 4 Your
clothes did not wear out and your feet did not swell during these forty years.
5 Know then in your heart that
as a man disciplines his son, so the Lord your God
disciplines you. – Deuteronomy 8:2-5
I am the bride that receives Mercy I don’t deserve and the
daughter that receives Grace I cannot pay. I am the Bride of Jesus who shows me
Mercy and the daughter He pours out his Grace upon. I cannot scrub myself clean enough, or erase the
mistakes fast enough, I am waiting for the blow of his arm he will never send.
I cannot pay the debt I owe by working harder or being better. The sound of his
Mercy is calming to my soul. His hand of Grace is gentle and pulls me close to
him.
I often find myself in the seat of Judge. Nobody told me I
could sit there. Every now and then I try it on for size and roll the stones
around in my pockets. I then share it with the gossip jury and we detail the sanctions.
We lay out our stones to be thrown enjoying the wincing and squirming from our
position all the while forgetting what we have been forgiven of.
Jesus, however, went to the
Mount of Olives. At daybreak he
appeared again in the Temple, and all the people came to him. So he sat down
and began to teach them. But the scribes and
the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery. After setting
her before them, they told him,
“Teacher, this woman has been caught in the very act of adultery. Now
in the Law, Moses commanded us to stone such women to death. What do you say?” They
said this to test him, so that they might have a charge against him. But Jesus
bent down and began to write on the ground with his finger.
When
they persisted in questioning him, he straightened up and told them, “Let
the person among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” Then he
bent down again and continued writing on the ground. When
they heard this, they went away one by one, beginning with the oldest and he
was left alone with the woman standing there. Then
Jesus stood up and asked her, “Dear lady, where are your accusers? Hasn’t
anyone condemned you?”
“No
one, sir,” she replied. Then Jesus said, “I don’t condemn you,
either. Go home, and from now on don’t sin
anymore.”
The Law of Moses says
I too should be stoned. I have broken the Ten Commandments beyond coveting and
have done so as a believer and teacher of God’s word. The God of second chances
has cleaned the dirt off my face more times than I can count, protected me from
stones I should have felt, and redeemed me from the hell I deserve. I am
replacing my stones with grace and mercy. I pray God helps me to carry them
everywhere I go. I am staying out of the seat of Judge and going in with the broken.
I am praying that he will use me to write in the dirt and help send the accuser
away.
But the wisdom from above is first of all pure. It
is also peace loving, gentle at all times, and willing to yield to others. It
is full of mercy and good deeds. It shows no favoritism and is always sincere. –
James 3:17
When I meet you I hope you feel his grace and
see his goodness. When I talk to you I hope you hear his love and the sound of
his mercy. When I leave you I hope you take his salvation and not because of
what I have done but because you have see what He can do with broken vessels.
Who
is a God like you? You forgive sin and overlook the rebellion of your faithful
people. You will not be angry forever, because you would rather show mercy. –
Micah 7:18
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