“Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you.”- John 13:14-15
“If you do not transform your pain, you surely will transmit it.”- Richard Rohr
In Chapter 5 (“Wet Feet”) of Grace, Max Lucado begins with the observation that “if hurts were hairs, we’d all look like grizzlies”. Rejection always hurts, whether that wounding is deliberate or random.
Forty-four-year-old Victoria Ruvolo was driving to her Long Island home when a twenty pound turkey, thrown from a passing car by an eighteen-year-old boy, came crashing through her windshield. Although she miraculously survived, she is reminded of her hurt whenever she looks in the mirror. She had every earthly reason to retaliate. That, Pastor Lucado notes, is how most people want to respond:
“They use the villain’s photo as a dart board. Their Vesuvius blows up every now and again, sending hate airborne, polluting and stinking the world. Most people keep a pot of anger on low boil.”
But Jesus has a better idea. We are to share the grace we’ve been given with others. Max states: “To accept grace is to accept the vow to give it.”
The young turkey thrower was sentenced to 6 months in prison and 5 years of probation. Everyone in the courtroom erupted in anger except one- Victoria Ruvolo. She allowed grace to shape her response. The reduced sentence was her idea. She said: “God gave me a second chance at life, and I passed it on.”
Today’s question: How do you respond to Max’s statement that “to accept grace is to accept the vow to give it”? Please share.
Tomorrow’s blog: “Grace happens here”
