I sat, slumped in an uncomfortably straight chair, as though I no longer had the energy to hold up my own body. My emotions were swirling uncomfortably, even though few words had been exchanged. A sweet, gray-haired woman relaxed comfortably on the couch across from me, smiling. Her eyes were kind, her expression gentle. She reached across the coffee table and extended a single sheet of paper. “Read this,” she commanded. “Out loud.”

It was a long list, 50 items. The first sentence took me off guard.

“I am…loved.  Jeremiah 31:3”. Thunderstorms rumbled angrily in my chest; raindrops filled my eyes.

“I am a ch…” The words stuck in my throat, unable to free themselves. Someone didn’t want truth spoken. I fought hard to finish it, trying to control myself, but an internal storm was overtaking my whole body. These words were so familiar, and yet completely foreign. 

“…a child of God.” It came out in a desperate whisper.

Line 3, my brain commanded. Focus and do what she said. I was well-trained to obey, but my heart was exploding.

“I am…worth dying for.” It was another whisper, and a sob escaped, and then a whole lifetime’s worth of sobs, pent up and buried for most of my life, burst forth.  I couldn’t read anymore, but the gray-haired lady only nodded, and smiled.

I was raised in church, beginning with my very first Sunday on earth. As an elder’s kid, church was my second home, and I lived there with all my best friends. I gave my life to Jesus and was baptized when I was 9, after a visit from the minister, who – shockingly, in my opinion – wrote! Right in my Bible! the scripture references for the Romans Road to Salvation. I remember staring at my mother as he put his pen to the inside of the back cover, waiting for her to correct him like she would have me, but she was mysteriously silent.

When that man left our congregation a couple of years later, his replacement brought with him 3 kids, the oldest my age. We eventually became the best of friends, giggling over the cute boys in our Sunday School class and commiserating over the standard of perfection to which our parents perpetually held us. We lived in the same fishbowl.

I worked hard at being a good Christian. There was no other option in our house. I struggled with some sins, so I knew I had “issues”, but I tried. My clothing, my music choices, and my language were all controlled.  I made sure to always get my parents’ permission before I went anywhere, even when I was an adult and my friends told me that was weird. The rare guy who asked me out was sent to my dad to get his permission.  And when I sinned, there was appropriate shame induced, then depression over my inability to keep God’s standards, and then I got back to “normal”, vowing to do better, work harder.

Years later, after some hard struggles, I really got myself together and walked the straight and narrow.  God rewarded me as my father again walked me down that same aisle to where that same minister guided my fiancé and I through our wedding vows.  I was on track; I was doing it! And God was blessing me in return.

We don’t know what we don’t know, as a friend of mine used to say.

I Samuel 16:7 says that man judges the outward appearance, but God sees our heart. Thankfully, when He looks at my parents’ hearts, He sees the same thoughts I would later have:  They wanted better for their children.  The burdens that they carried into their adult life were a heavy noose; they didn’t want us to bear those same weights, so they tried to guarantee we wouldn’t.

But we cannot give to others what we ourselves do not have, and what they were never given was a word that would not come into my repertoire with any real meaning until I was a middle-aged mother of four.

By then I was in my forties, regularly cycling through endless rounds of striving, and giving up, and getting angry at God, and then feeling guilty and turning back to striving. The goal was always to “be better”, but all I could seem to master was failure. 

We don’t know what we don’t know.

And then…

We rolled into our new church one Sunday, our family of 6 scooting into a back row, late as usual.

Inwardly, I cursed my own ineptitude. “Can’t even get here on time.” I shook my head as I perused the bulletin and saw the sermon title: “Grace”.  My parents’ voices united in my head: “Grace is the power to do what you ought.”

I was about to realize what I didn’t know, because the man in the pulpit said differently. He told a story about his 16-year-old self who took his parents’ new conversion van for a ride and totaled it, and how his Mama never said a word, even though they hadn’t even had a chance to insure it, because she was “modeling grace”.

I was gobsmacked. I knew only too well what my punishment would’ve been had I done that. I would have had “failure” practically tattooed onto my forehead and I would never be trusted with a car key again as long as I lived. I would work forever to pay off the debt. Wasn’t that…responsible parenting?

We can’t be perfect, he said. I nodded; this I surely knew. He quoted Luke 5:31: “’It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.’  We need Christ. We need His grace!”

“So many of us put our faith in books or methods that promise that this plus that equals perfect kids. A + B = C. That’s not grace!” My head spun. My whole childhood was A + B = C.  I generally failed at getting A + B down, and because of that, C never materialized.

“Your kids won’t be perfect. YOU won’t be perfect. But you can’t make God love you more! You can’t act right enough to earn grace.”

God spoke words through the man that I had never heard in my life. Grace – real, unfiltered truth – poured over me like syrup over pancakes, thick and sweet. I was tasting, mentally sampling. In my mind’s eye, a new, unfocused picture formed. What is this madness?  It was impossible to grasp. I restrained myself from grabbing everyone on the way out and screeching, “Did you hear that? Did you know that?” 

But in the days that followed, as I tried to grasp the concept, the weightlessness was nerve-wracking. My life was molded to the old burden. What did a grace-filled life look like?  I only knew how to work for His favor.

We don’t know what we don’t know.

There is a comfortable certainty in striving. It is a weight that we can measure ourselves against, a reciprocation that makes sense to our selfish minds: Give and get. Shared responsibility. 50/50. Otherwise, the magnitude of such a gift, the one-sidedness of God’s grace, is nearly unbelievable; it is almost embarrassing to one who is so acutely aware of the depth of their own flaws and failures. I only knew about to trying to improve my flaws…giving him my 50…so that He could possibly use me, and hopefully bless me. Belief + Works = Blessing.

And so, I believed in grace…was thankful for it…and still couldn’t quite comprehend it.

Until the day I sat in my counselor’s office, holding the list in my shaking hands.

I had tried with all my might to serve, follow, do all the right things, and I’d even done it well!Yet I was miserable, and angry. Despite doing my best, God was still miles away. He rarely blessed; I was never going to be good enough. Why was I doing all this? Life was a trainwreck. I was done.

My counselor had spoken plainly.

“I think you have a wrong understanding of God”.

 I stared back blankly.

How many versions of Him could there be?

List in hand, I read truth slowly, haltingly. Familiar words became foreign. This can’t be right. He loves me? Even when I sin?

I read on through the list: blessings, gifts, promises…all for the one I knew was a never-ending, undeserving failure.

I’m not a failure?

Light was beginning to break through.

Suddenly I remembered that Sunday, so many years before: “You can’t do anything to make Him love you more than He does right now.”  

He loves me…“as is”? Full lightbulb moment.

The blinders came off. I’d been bargaining with my pitiful “goodness”, expecting my very best efforts would make Him happy and thus guarantee His blessing. 50/50. Even Steven.

But I’d missed the point completely. It was never going to be my goodness that made Him love me. It couldn’t be, because I had none of it to offer.

He loved me…because I was His. He just loved me. Trainwreck and all. The End.

I was stunned.  Unbelievable, incomprehensible, life-altering truth. The kind of love I’d been searching for my whole life.

I could offer nothing in return but a whispered, “Thank you, Jesus.” 

And the gray-haired lady smiled.