Grace

When I was growing up, I always got into trouble. Maybe it was the “middle child syndrome,” or the fact that I just always knew how to act out and try and grab attention, or the fact that I was just a trouble making kid. Whatever day it was, and almost anywhere that I was, you can almost count on my mom yanking me by the wrist and speaking sternly to me, telling me things like “you better behave,” or “wait until I tell your father,” or my favorite… “we are in public, what are you doing? straighten up.” Maybe those weren’t her exact words, but I’m sure they’re pretty similar. Anyways, whatever it was I was doing, I was bound to get scolded for it. All I ever wanted to do was have fun, and making the most boring places exciting. I would hide in the clothing racks at Target and Wal*Mart (what kid hasn’t?), or I would wander away from my mom to hit up the toy section (and promptly get lost trying to find her with whatever new toy I had suddenly fallen in love with), or I would walk behind her knocking over backwards everything on the shelves that I could reach (like cereal boxes, or something like that). I’m sure the employees of whatever store I was in weren’t too thrilled about my presence, but neither was I — I never asked to go to Publix with my mom, and I sure as hell never asked to go to Sam’s. Sam’s is the most boring store I can ever think of.

Whatever it was, my mom would inevitably be aggravated, sometimes actually angry, and would scold me until either it was drilled into my head and I could repeat it backwards in gibberish, or I shut down and stopped listening completely. If it was the latter, there is a 173% chance that I would end up doing the things she was scolding me about the next day, or even the next hour.

Some days, I feel like that child again. Like I’m never doing anything right, and that I just won’t stop playing games. I am nineteen years old… isn’t it time that the games stop? Some days, I think that God is probably feeling the way my mom felt when I played these games in the stores. Only this time, I’m not playing games in shopping establishments. I’m playing games with my life. And really, what kind of life is it if I’m playing games and constantly pushing my Father’s buttons? What am I doing to bring honor to my Father, if I am constantly disobeying him… on purpose?

Just like it hurt my mom when I would deliberately disobey her, I am certain that it hurts my Dad even more.

When someone wants the best for you, they have certain standards that you are expected to meet. My mother wants me to finish college, get a degree, settle down, do something great like have kids and be the best wife possible, and probably hold down a job, too. My dad wants me to switch colleges, then get a degree, then settle down and be a housewife or something.

But my Dad? My Dad has a plan all of his own for me, and he’s not quite ready to tell me what that plan is yet. I am sure that it is a good plan, though, since he really does know what is best for me.

When you are a daughter or son to a couple of great, loving parents, they expect you to obey them and bring honor to them. My parents want me to obey them as much as I can, and they want me to listen to them, to love them, to accept their opinions and judgments. They require nothing but the best from me, and all the while I am to be a good daughter that brings nothing but honor to the Tucker family name. I am to be respectful, to be honest, and trustworthy, and to be everything that a morally upright person should be.

So it is with my Father. He requires my best. He requires sincerity, and honesty, and holiness if I am going to be bringing honor to His name.

And if I continue to disobey my Father, and if I continue to walk the opposite direction that he desires me to walk… I am not bringing glory or honor to his family name, am I? And if I’m not bringing glory and honor to his family name, to this family I have been so graciously accepted into, what kind of daughter am I being?

Answer: a dishonorable one.

The beauty of the Lord’s family is this: we are all dishonorable quite often in our lives. Each one of us refuses to give God all the glory all the time, and each one of us refuses to obey God when we know that he knows what’s best for us. The beauty of God is that he has shown us mercy, and has washed over us with grace. The fantasticness of God’s love is that, even when we screw up so badly, he still loves us and still loves to love us. Even when we fail miserably, somehow he finds it in his giant heart to forgive us. And it is this forgiveness that I have been swept away by over the past few weeks and months.

I don’t have very much else to say, except that I am thankful for the Lord’s grace. That I know that without it, I would be held accountable to the Law, which I know for sure that I would not be able to stand up next to.

So God, if you read lowly blogs, thank you. I love you.

Megan.