Jesus
"Grace wins every time"
Matthew West
"Choose to live in the Grace of the day"
Phillip Yancey
Why, and how, did I become so very, very sick that day in Las Vegas? There was no explainable reason for it. I was literally stuck in bed...until I reached out for help and called Marilyn. But why? Lynne and I discussed that when I was at Desert Solace, and we believe...and now I am sure of it...that it was Grace at work. Divine intervention.
I was trying to not just run away from home, my family, and my life, but I was also running away from God. From Jesus, and from His atonement. He paid a huge price for me, and He wasn't going to let it all go to waste. So I hit "rock bottom" and then had the opportunity to climb out, and that opportunity was His Grace.
Grace is mentioned all through the scriptures, ancient and modern. Jesus introduces himself more than once as being "full of Grace and Truth." I think it's so cool that of all the words He could use to describe Himself, He uses those two. Grace. Truth. But here's the real interesting part...growing up in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in the 60's and 70's, I don't remember Grace being mentioned, talked about, taught about, or discussed. The story I make up is that we...culturally, as members of the church...were afraid of it. We have always been about "doing"...one of our iconic symbols is the beehive! Busy as bees! Have you ever seen bees slow down, just for a minute?
There's a scripture in the Book of Mormon...2 Nephi 25:23. The second half of that verse reads "for we know that it is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do." And growing up, all I was taught and all I understood was the "after all we can do" part. So Grace was a foreign concept. I heard it from my Christian friends, and in Young Life, but what I heard them talk about just seemed too easy. There was work to do! So...I was confused. As I grew older this cloud I was living in didn't get much clearer...until I ended up in Desert Solace. Then I discovered Grace. With a capital G!
All of a sudden I was seeing Grace everywhere. What have I discovered and learned and experienced? God loves me. More than I can possibly understand. Jesus loves me. So much that He suffered every pain, emotion, fear, and sin that I would, or could, experience...so that I could live, and live more abundantly. When James wrote "God is love" he wasn't kidding. But what is Grace? I can only know my personal experience, although in recovery I have read more than a few books about Grace. I especially love a new book by Emily Belle Freeman called "Grace Where You Are."
She says "Grace is not about what we can do; it's all about what He can do."
So in Las Vegas that day, Jesus saved me. That's why I got sick. Grace where I was. And then he provided a place for me to go to begin recovery. He provided support, love, insight, learning, and experiences to resurrect my life. To become someone new. Grace. I had done nothing to deserve all this. I had pretty well rejected Him. But He wouldn't let me go. He loves me too much. So for me, Grace is intervention. Grace is forgiveness. Grace is pulling me from the dark and showing me the light. But it's so much more than that...
Grace is His atoning sacrifice, and because of His experience I can partner with Him every day of my life. He knows me, better than I know myself. He gets it. So as I choose...because it's always a choice...to accept Him and His Grace in my life, that Grace enables me to do so much more than I could ever do by myself, on my own. Going back to what Nephi wrote, somehow we think that we have to do it all, and do it by ourselves. We think we have to "work out our own salvation." And then...somewhere in the distant future His Grace kicks in. NO. His Grace is NOW. Today. Every day. Here's what we miss in that scripture...all around it, in the first half of that verse, and before and after that verse, Nephi says we need to just "believe in Christ". And he says that seven times! How did I miss that for so many years!? Believe. And from that belief springs Grace.
There's another favorite Book of Mormon scripture. Ether 12:27. You can't get through a month of church without someone quoting this verse...
"And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then I will make weak things become strong unto them."
It's a beautiful verse, but we always miss the most important part right in the middle..."My grace is sufficient..." His Grace is enough and what we need to "do" is believe and have faith. Of course, if we truly believe, and really have faith, then we will be "doing"...it's a natural result. But the "doing" can never come first, without the believing or the faith. His Grace takes care of everything.
So it's His Help and His Love...every day. I cannot save myself, and I could not recover myself. I worked hard at Desert Solace, but realized early in recovery that I could not go from an apple to an orange without help. His Help. His Grace. Power, help, forgiveness, mercy, love, and joy I had not earned. Only because He loves me.
I love what Paul wrote to the Hebrews a couple of thousand years ago..."Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need." Boldly. Without reservation. It's there...that Grace...and we just need to go get it. But so often, He comes to us. Even when we don't ask. Even when we are running away...
I am living proof of what Jeffrey R. Holland said in 2012...
"However late you think you are, however many chances you think you have missed, however mistakes you feel you have made or talents you think you don't have, or however far from home and family and God you feel you have traveled, I testify that you have not traveled beyond the reach of divine love. It is not possible for you to sink lower than the infinite light of Christ's Atonement shines." And His light...His Grace...found me in that dark motel room in Las Vegas. That is the day I was saved. I had no idea then, but that was the day Jesus said, "Enough already!"..."Come unto Me."
And now I can echo what Ann Lamott said..."I do not understand the mystery of Grace - only that it meets us where we are but does not leave us where it found us." And now I get to choose...daily...to "live in the Grace of the day." I can say with Nephi..."My soul delighteth in His Grace."
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