“It’s just, because you are divorced and re-married, in my eyes you are living in a state of perpetual adultery”.

Dafydd, an elder at my church in Wales, sang and savoured the words as only the Welsh language allows. Naturally I was deeply encouraged, and was not the least bit hurt by his words…nor do I remain in the slightest bit bitter!

Do I dare to have a rant about people who show so little grace? Will I not end up being just as graceless?

Perhaps I need, after all this time (at least 12 years), to get it off my chest. One thing less ‘on my chest’ would surely not be a bad thing.

I am so sad that in the church, the place I’d most expect to see people who know that, but for God’s undeserved kindness they’d be written off, and therefore extend that same kindness to others, I so often see grace’s opposite. Why is it that Christians who are so anxious to believe all the right things so often fail miserably to live the things we believe? I guess it’s to demonstrate that even the ‘best’ of us needs grace, and to make the rest of us really thankful that grace is God’s gift, and not in the hands of the ‘holy and righteous’, for if that were the case, grace might be a nearly extinct, rare breed.

Or would it?

I so often see grace at work in the world, between unlikely people and in unlikely places. It pulls me up and surprises me with joy.

Grace is everywhere…to be seen, enjoyed, marvelled at…and shared. Thank God for grace!