Is There Enough Grace For Me?

    No one deserves grace.  That's the point.  Grace is undeserved favor.  An acronym I once learned was God's Righteousness At Christ's Expense.  Yet, sometimes, I wonder if there is something I must do to be a candidate for, or recipient of, this mysterious concept we call grace.  Don't get me wrong.  I know God's grace is freely given, and all we do is place our faith in Him. I don't question God's grace, but rather the version of grace we talk about.

     Probably the greatest perversion of grace I experienced was the summer of 2004.  I was twenty-two years old, and loved the Lord with all that was within me.  I had joy in my heart, as well as struggles with depression (both of which I will discuss in further blogs).  I was discipling a new believer who would go on to become an overseas missionary.  Another good friend I was doing ministry with at the time is still involved in music ministry at our home church back in California.  I was ready to share the gospel at every opportunity, and daily sought God in the Bible and prayer. 

     I was a missionary in Riverside, California.  One of my favorite parts of ministry was Christian Youth in Action (CYIA).  As I'll share in the future, I attended CYIA as a high schooler, and loved it!  It was a nine day training, where teenagers learned to evangelize children in summer 5-day Bible Clubs.  After training, students would return to their home areas and teach the Bible clubs all summer.  I had seen the Lord work in my life, and in other students' lives.  What's more, the CYIA training was held in my home area, at California Baptist University.  This meant, in 2004, that it was my job to set up 5-day clubs in the area for the students to teach during training, and make certain (but not all) arrangements.

     Please keep in mind that we were an outside group using the University campus.  This naturally meant we were under some level of obligation to follow the University guidelines.  One of these guidelines was this: Female students could only wear a one-piece bathing suit in the University pool.  This was not our rule, it was the school's. 

     All students were told prior to training about the requirements.  As always, there were some students who didn't read the guidelines.  I'm giving the benefit of the doubt on that.  At worst, they decided the rule didn't apply to them somehow.  But as I said, I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and say it was an oversight. 

     Our state director's wife (my superior) whom I'll call Mrs. Lawrence, told the girls who showed up with bikinis that she was going to show them "grace" and allow them to use the pool anyway.

     Let's look at what's wrong with this so far.  Mrs. Lawrence superseded the authority of the University by telling girls they didn't have to follow the University's guideline. And she called it grace.

   If it were her own swimming pool, she would have been within her own right to change the rule.  But it WASN'T her pool.  She was out of line.  Whether or not she agreed with the rule, she needed to follow it, or find a different place to have training.

      After Mrs. Lawrence told the girls they could wear bikinis, she made me take them to the pool.
     It didn't take the lifeguard long to approach me.  I was shocked and embarrassed to discover that I KNEW him!  The lifeguard was in my college/career Bible study.  Narrowing his eyes at me, he asked, "What is this, Janelle?  Didn't your group know we don't allow two-piece swimsuits?" I awkwardly apologized.  He told me the girls couldn't stay in the pool.  I told him I understood.

     Getting the girls to come with me was a task.  They all blamed me!  Talk about shooting the messenger.  But this was only the beginning.

     When we got back to Mrs. Lawrence, she demanded to know how I could be so legalistic.  Really?!?  I'm legalistic because the University lifeguard upheld their rule?  She told me I needed more grace.  Then she again told the girls they could wear their bikinis to the pool.  She told me to take them back to the pool.  I flat-out refused.  I told her how embarrassing it was for me to be confronted by the lifeguard, whom I knew personally.  "Then you're too prideful!" She told me.  I was prideful because she wanted to overstep her bounds?  

     The swimsuit issue escalated.  Other modesty guidelines were overridden by Mrs.  Lawrence.  I had set up the Bible clubs these students were teaching.  The people hosting the clubs were my personal friends.  They began complaining to me about the conduct and seductive outfits of some of our students.  They felt it wasn't appropriate for evangelizing kids.  They were right.

     I got some other staff who agreed with me, and we approached Mr. and Mrs. Lawrence.  We shared the complaints we had received.  Before her husband could respond, Mrs. Lawrence began to cry.  She said, " If we did things your way, we wouldn't have any students at all!"

     The last night of ministry, one of my superiors (the assistant state director's wife, whom I'll call Mrs. Chatham) asked me to give a talk on modesty to the students.  I had about ten minutes to put an impromptu little talk together.  If I had to do it over again, I would probably do some of it differently.  But please remember, I was twenty-two and had just minutes to plan it.  And I don't think I said anything bad.  I challenged them all to walk in purity, and obey the rules.  I had a couple of guys even share their perspectives on girl's modesty.  After I finished, Mr. Lawrence (state director and final authority) and Mrs. Chatham praised my talk.  A few of the more godly students thanked me.  One parent who was present complimented it.

     Not everyone was happy with me.  One particularly nasty girl threatened to quit (really?  On the last night, you really want to quit because I challenged you to excellence?).  But Mrs. Lawrence was 100% on this girl's side.  This meant that I was in trouble.  Mrs. Lawrence was physically shaking as she raged at me.  Mrs. Chatham, who had asked me to do it in the first place, was intimidated, and backed off from the situation (even though this was her idea).  She left me holding the bag.  Mr. Lawrence backed off too, even though he had originally approved of everything I said.  He decided his wife was right, and he let her rip me apart.  Mrs. Lawrence told me I was directly responsible for sending people to hell.  She told me I needed to love my neighbor more (never mind that I had led my next-door neighbors to the Lord).  She concluded that I needed to have grace. That seemed to be her favorite word to misuse.  

     I decided that if grace meant to excuse sin and attack those who wanted to do right, I wanted no part of it. What was really communicated to me was this: there's enough grace for everyone but me. 

     My relationship with my superiors  was never the same.  My spirit was wounded.  

     It took a lot of healing in my heart before I understood that there IS enough grace for me.  God has been so good, and He sent some people into my life to show me His grace.  I have been blessed with opportunities to give and receive grace.

     I'll close this with a brief story from my summer evangelism team from 2007.  One of my summer missionaries broke a rule.  I had told the students that breaking this rule would result in not getting ice cream with the group. When this young lady broke the rule, I was really sad.  I loved her, and didn't want to withhold ice cream from her when everyone else was getting it.  At that moment, God gave me the solution, and taught me what grace was. 

     "Stacy," I said to her, "you don't deserve ice cream because you broke the rule.  I DO deserve ice cream, because I haven't broken the rule.  But I'm going to take your punishment and you're going to get my ice cream, just like Jesus took our punishment." The punishment still stood, but it fell on me.

     That is the moment I knew what grace was.  It isn't being soft on sin.  It isn't attacking others.  It's being like Jesus.