Unmerited favor
Last Tuesday I flew home to surprise my mom on her 65th birthday. When traveling during the winter, I'm used to worrying about the weather on the east coast end, since California is pretty much paradise year-round. Not so this time, when our plane was struck by lightning somewhere over the Sierra Nevada. There was a loud pop and the cabin lit up as if someone had set off a giant flashbulb. None of us realized exactly what had happened, though, until we landed half an hour later and the captain informed us that this was the first time he'd ever actually been hit by a lightning bolt in 30-plus years of flying. Even though I understand such a thing is not entirely uncommon and usually not deadly, I'm glad he made his terrifying confession after we were safely on the ground. I would hate for my mom to hear that I perished in a freak accident because I was trying to surprise her on her birthday.
My brother picked me up from the Orange County airport. On the drive down to Carlsbad, we reconnoitered with my dad on the phone. My dad, who had been obsessively following the storm watches in California for the past few days, said with delight that God had answered his prayer for a clear afternoon; indeed, the rain had stopped shortly before my plane landed and held back for the rest of the day. I didn't tell him about the lightning.
We caught up with my dad at the Albertson's a few blocks from our house, where he was standing in a checkout line with the ugliest plant in the store. It had glossy and spiky leaves that were dark green at the base and hot pink on top. My dad can always be counted on to pick out the item my mom least wants to possess. My brother smoothly redirected him to a dozen red roses with baby's breath, I picked out a card, and then we went home to hide upstairs until my mom returned from work.
My dad greeted her at the door with the roses, and after a minute or two my brother came down (she was surprised because he lives an hour away and only comes back on the weekends), and then after another couple of minutes I came out. It felt really good to do something over the top just for my mother, who has spent the past several years shouldering some heavy burdens. She stood by my dad when our old church spit hellfire on him, she sits by his side nursing his various chronic diseases, she holds him up when his spirits understandably sag under the weight of such tribulations. She consistently puts the rest of us first, which was why it was past time for us to acknowledge what she means to our family. She was very happy to see all of us, although to be honest-she was most surprised about the roses. We didn't tell her about the original plant.
I'd made reservations at Vigilucci's, an Italian spot downtown. (When I asked my dad what kind of food Mom likes, he said Olive Garden... which is why I decided to choose a restaurant.) We were just about to leave the house when the landline rang. On the other end was a nearly incoherent Chinese woman, so I handed the phone over to my mom. It turned out to be a neighbor, a family who had recently emigrated from the mainland. The wife was in labor, so could my mom come over to watch the kids? What could we do? My mom hung up and ran across the street.
We didn't know how long she would be over there. On their way out, the neighbors had mentioned a family friend was going to come by and take the kids to her place, but we didn't know when that would be. It was pointless to go have a fancy dinner without the guest of honor; should we just get drive-thru In 'n Out and bring her back a double-double, animal style? Since it was still relatively early in the evening, we decided to wait and see.
After a couple of hours, though, I was starting to get cranky. Childbirth is one of the few events you can't fault for ruining your plans, but I did just fly 3,000 miles. It was my mom's birthday. And my dad had taken an insulin shot in anticipation of dinner, which meant that pretty soon he either had to ruin his appetite or become hypoglycemic. I was just beginning to complain to my dad when another phone call came. It was the husband. Someone was coming to pick the kids up soon. They had lost the baby.
And God taught me another lesson, in that instant, about grace. I had the means-the money and availability-to travel 3,000 miles just to celebrate a joyous occasion with my family. That I already knew. But that's not where the blessing begins. It begins 28 years ago, when a woman at the far end of the safe childbirthing age has a kid, seven pounds and ten ounces, then another one two and a half years later and a pound more. The blessing begins when both kids come out pink and screaming, with ten fingers and ten toes, instead of blue and silent, with an umbilical cord around the neck. It continues as the kids learn to walk and feed themselves, to talk and interact with the outside world, to love Jesus and other people. It continues when they leave home for college and steady employment, and when they come back just to hang out. And blessing is also having people to come back to. Blessing is making it to 65 years, or 28 years, or 1 day despite all our follies and flaws.
And grace? My dad, blood sugar surely hovering in the double digits, could think of nothing other than ministering to our neighbors. Grief for what they had lost was evident in his prayer. And on the evening of her 65th birthday, my mom was on her hands and knees scrubbing her neighbor's blood out of the carpet so that her young children wouldn't have to see it.
My mom told me later, after we had enjoyed our postponed dinner at Vigilucci's, that she asked God to forgive her for her small heart, for wishing that she was out celebrating her birthday amidst our neighbors' tragedy. After work the next day, in the middle of a thunderstorm she stopped by Von's to buy a dozen chicken drumsticks in order to cook a giant pot of soup to take to them. I could only shake my head. It is the very fact that my parents are good that they think they are bad.
Blessings are not earned. My parents are mostly good but they aren't saints. They haven't done anything in particular to deserve kids who made it to adulthood without any apparent mental or physical defect, not over other couples with very different outcomes. Being good didn't help me avoid flying into a thunderstorm and getting struck by lightning, but it had nothing to do with surviving it either. What I learned about grace is that it's not just about the close calls or the special gifts you get on your birthday. Grace is our very existence, the privilege of drawing your first breath to the one you drew just now.
And grace can be what we do next, if we so choose.
My brother picked me up from the Orange County airport. On the drive down to Carlsbad, we reconnoitered with my dad on the phone. My dad, who had been obsessively following the storm watches in California for the past few days, said with delight that God had answered his prayer for a clear afternoon; indeed, the rain had stopped shortly before my plane landed and held back for the rest of the day. I didn't tell him about the lightning.
We caught up with my dad at the Albertson's a few blocks from our house, where he was standing in a checkout line with the ugliest plant in the store. It had glossy and spiky leaves that were dark green at the base and hot pink on top. My dad can always be counted on to pick out the item my mom least wants to possess. My brother smoothly redirected him to a dozen red roses with baby's breath, I picked out a card, and then we went home to hide upstairs until my mom returned from work.
My dad greeted her at the door with the roses, and after a minute or two my brother came down (she was surprised because he lives an hour away and only comes back on the weekends), and then after another couple of minutes I came out. It felt really good to do something over the top just for my mother, who has spent the past several years shouldering some heavy burdens. She stood by my dad when our old church spit hellfire on him, she sits by his side nursing his various chronic diseases, she holds him up when his spirits understandably sag under the weight of such tribulations. She consistently puts the rest of us first, which was why it was past time for us to acknowledge what she means to our family. She was very happy to see all of us, although to be honest-she was most surprised about the roses. We didn't tell her about the original plant.
I'd made reservations at Vigilucci's, an Italian spot downtown. (When I asked my dad what kind of food Mom likes, he said Olive Garden... which is why I decided to choose a restaurant.) We were just about to leave the house when the landline rang. On the other end was a nearly incoherent Chinese woman, so I handed the phone over to my mom. It turned out to be a neighbor, a family who had recently emigrated from the mainland. The wife was in labor, so could my mom come over to watch the kids? What could we do? My mom hung up and ran across the street.
We didn't know how long she would be over there. On their way out, the neighbors had mentioned a family friend was going to come by and take the kids to her place, but we didn't know when that would be. It was pointless to go have a fancy dinner without the guest of honor; should we just get drive-thru In 'n Out and bring her back a double-double, animal style? Since it was still relatively early in the evening, we decided to wait and see.
After a couple of hours, though, I was starting to get cranky. Childbirth is one of the few events you can't fault for ruining your plans, but I did just fly 3,000 miles. It was my mom's birthday. And my dad had taken an insulin shot in anticipation of dinner, which meant that pretty soon he either had to ruin his appetite or become hypoglycemic. I was just beginning to complain to my dad when another phone call came. It was the husband. Someone was coming to pick the kids up soon. They had lost the baby.
And God taught me another lesson, in that instant, about grace. I had the means-the money and availability-to travel 3,000 miles just to celebrate a joyous occasion with my family. That I already knew. But that's not where the blessing begins. It begins 28 years ago, when a woman at the far end of the safe childbirthing age has a kid, seven pounds and ten ounces, then another one two and a half years later and a pound more. The blessing begins when both kids come out pink and screaming, with ten fingers and ten toes, instead of blue and silent, with an umbilical cord around the neck. It continues as the kids learn to walk and feed themselves, to talk and interact with the outside world, to love Jesus and other people. It continues when they leave home for college and steady employment, and when they come back just to hang out. And blessing is also having people to come back to. Blessing is making it to 65 years, or 28 years, or 1 day despite all our follies and flaws.
And grace? My dad, blood sugar surely hovering in the double digits, could think of nothing other than ministering to our neighbors. Grief for what they had lost was evident in his prayer. And on the evening of her 65th birthday, my mom was on her hands and knees scrubbing her neighbor's blood out of the carpet so that her young children wouldn't have to see it.
My mom told me later, after we had enjoyed our postponed dinner at Vigilucci's, that she asked God to forgive her for her small heart, for wishing that she was out celebrating her birthday amidst our neighbors' tragedy. After work the next day, in the middle of a thunderstorm she stopped by Von's to buy a dozen chicken drumsticks in order to cook a giant pot of soup to take to them. I could only shake my head. It is the very fact that my parents are good that they think they are bad.
Blessings are not earned. My parents are mostly good but they aren't saints. They haven't done anything in particular to deserve kids who made it to adulthood without any apparent mental or physical defect, not over other couples with very different outcomes. Being good didn't help me avoid flying into a thunderstorm and getting struck by lightning, but it had nothing to do with surviving it either. What I learned about grace is that it's not just about the close calls or the special gifts you get on your birthday. Grace is our very existence, the privilege of drawing your first breath to the one you drew just now.
And grace can be what we do next, if we so choose.