The church-going world of an insider that I had known for nineteen years was about to be over. There was an awareness that my choice and consequently, my Enemy-authored shame was about to cause me to feel rejected by my church, friends and family and I was about to face isolation and heartbreak. I will never forget that night, looking up at the stained glass window from the outside. It was foreshadowing of my life to come. Yet this was the first time I truly understood God’s grace. It was 1978 and I was in a situation where there was no easy way out. The world as I knew it was about to change. The gravity of the situation was more than I could handle. So in the dark of night, in my college town of Plainview, Texas, I sat alone in my car staring up at the beautiful backlit stained glass of a nearby church, pouring my heart out to God and receiving my first glimpse of God’s amazing grace. He was there to cry out to when there was no one else. It is in moments like this that the veil becomes thinner and we get a better glimpse of God’s heart.
The words to Better Than a Hallelujah by Amy Grant express this well.
The woman holding on for life, The dying man giving up the fight Are better than a Hallelujah sometimes. The tears of shame for what's been done, The silence when the words won't come Are better than a Hallelujah sometimes. We pour out our miseries God just hears a melody Beautiful the mess we are The honest cries of breaking hearts Are better than a Hallelujah.
Until you experience something radically out of your control, you cannot truly experience God’s grace. Up until that point in my young life, my choices did not slap me in the face with consequences. So I swept them under the rug and considered myself a pretty good person. Grace cannot be experienced when you do not confront your own sinful nature. Grace is reserved for the humble and repentant and without this, I could not know this ultimate love from my Savior. At this time I realized God is merciful and that I cannot deserve or earn his love. Nothing I could do could separate me from this mercy and nothing I can do will make me deserving of it. All He expects from me is to be truthful with myself and with him.
God allowed consequences to plunge me into a world that was starkly different from anything I had ever known. And it is those circumstances that forced me to see God in a much more personal way than before. Those hardships gave me perspective and depth. They gave me a promotion in life. They caused me to cling to my Father. But did God answer my cry for help? Yes, he abundantly answered my prayers but not in a way I expected. In the following years I experienced rejection, poverty, isolation and heartbreak. Every month I didn’t know how I was going to buy groceries.
During this season, however, God gifted me with a passion for my new role in life as a mom. He gave me a healthy baby girl, and later, another beautiful baby girl, a college education, a career, and then guided me to a place where I was loved and accepted. There I met and married the love of my life and God continued to bless me with a son and so many good things, some of which I never could have imagined. And he did it over a long period of time. He did all of this in His time. There have been sorrows along this earthly road and Lord knows, I am daily still learning, but looking back I realize the difficulties far outweighed the blessings of God’s beautiful, amazing grace.