A Moment of Grace

9-21-09

Last Tuesday I received grace.

An example of it, anyway. I arrived at my Christian Beliefs class early, ready for the day's lecture and probing questions, only to discover that I had forgotten to do part of the homework (because I had not remembered to transfer it from my class notebook to my assignment sheet I make up every week). I thought, "Well, I have fifteen minutes before class starts, I could run to the library or back to my room and do it and be a little late. It's not hard." So I picked up my backpack and headed out of Daniells Hall.

In my slightly panicked walking, I ran into (not literally) my teacher for the class, Dr. Jacobs. I told him what I was doing, and he said, "No, you're not. Go back into the classroom and turn it into me after class. You have a free period then, right?" I assented to this and went back to class, still feeling stupid that I'd forgotten the homework in the first place. Then I did the homework and turned it in. What relief I felt!

It's not a perfect metaphor, granted. But it was still a moment where I didn't deserve what I got. I deserved a zero on the assignment; instead, I got a second chance. It was grace, unmerited, and after I'd thought about it, I realized that it was pretty awesome for Dr. Jacobs to have done that--but even more awesome that God gave us something we totally did not deserve: He died for us.

That's just the thought I had last week. More later.