I started a class on mercy last night. I have to say it’s the first time I’ve ever taught on the subject. One of the reasons for my choice of subject is the lack of mercy I see in Gods people. If our world needs anything its mercy and who better to provide it then the people who have experienced Gods mercy first hand. Why is it that we who have been shown mercy are so slow to share it with others?
The more I prepare for this subject the more I’m convinced mercy is one of those things that is so different, so wild, so other worldly that it shakes us all when it shows up. When mercy arrives everyone knows it. It’s like diving in to cold water on a hot summer day. It’s just what you need, exactly when you need it.
What I want is your stories about mercy. Where have you seen, experienced, received or heard about mercy. I want the stories to use in class but I also think that if you and I open our eyes and look for mercy we may see it, and in the process become more merciful ourselves.
posted by Randy @ 7:30 AM
1 comments
1 Comments:
I think it’s sort of sad that it took me awhile to think of a story about mercy in my life. But I thought of two vague stories, so here they are. I didn’t completely elaborate, but I figure you can fill in the blanks.
You know that my Mission Year in California was hard. Loving the unlovable is hard. Living with four other women (and only one bathroom) is hard enough, but when those women don’t seem to care about you and aren’t acting as your support like they were supposed to is hard. Living under rules you feel are oppressive is hard. Being far away from your family is hard. Meeting people in the neighborhood was hard. Life was very hard, and I was getting sort of depressed by the time I was only a few months into my year of service.
Nothing was working like it was supposed to. The people at our church didn’t seem interested in getting to know us, my home life was annoying, and I wasn’t seeing God in the Christians around me. I was just seeing legalism and ugliness, and that disappointed me. I was mad at God, too, for bringing me to California and then not doing what I thought He should. I had these GRAND expectations about what I would be able to accomplish in the year, and none of them were happening. It looked like I would not even get close. I wondered if I would do anything good or useful in the year.
But I did enjoy one thing: providing footcare for the homeless men of Oakland in our free medical clinic. It made me feel useful, but most importantly, the men whose feet I worked on were thankful. They let me know that they were thankful for me and thankful for what I did for them and amazed that I was taking a year off from my “real” life to hang out with them. Those guys saved me; they gave me purpose and showed me love and taught me things about God that I never would have learned otherwise. They praised God even as they slept on the streets. They were thankful for the little they had. They loved on me like no one else.
Of course nothing can stay perfect forever, and near the end of my year in Oakland I started getting annoyed by some of the patients we saw in our clinic. Some of them became demanding and rude, and some of my favorite patients quit coming. But then I found mercy somewhere else: first graders.
I worked in the first grade at Fruitvale Elementary school, too, and those kids saved me. Again. I came to their classroom twice a week and whenever I walked through the door they would squeal my name and run over and crush me as they all tried to hug me at once. They drew me pictures and played with me and wanted to hold my hand as we walked to lunch. They would throw their little arms around my waist and tell me how glad they were that I came to their classroom. Apparently they still ask about me. I will probably never know what becomes of them or if my time in their lives will have any lasting effect, but I’m thankful for the time I spent with them and what they gave me: a sense of purpose and the opportunity to be loved.
I couldn’t have made it through my year in the inner-city without the homeless men and first graders I came to know, which is funny, because I thought I was there to save them. Turns out it was the other way around.
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