gracegracegracegrace

“But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ – by grace you have been saved – and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.” –Ephesians 2:4-7

I was looking for a verse to compliment this post, and quoted the first one I saw that said “grace.” Real talk, the focus of this verse isn’t grace*, but I’m putting it up as an epigraph anyway. My Bible doesn’t have an index of frequently used terms/words and their corresponding verses, and I really wasn’t trying to flip through page after page looking for a verse on grace that reflects what I'm about to say. Apologies for being a lazy (Bible) scholar, but it’s been a long, wonderful, enriching, challenging 3 or 4 days.

Anyway. Ephesians 2:4-7 stuck out fairly literally: The translation I’m working with (The Harper Collins Study Bible) offsets “by grace you have been saved” with dashes. The translators might as well have put “by grace…” in purple. The bold rhetorical and visual effect of dashes makes readers focus on what’s inscribed in them. I feel like those dashes were God’s way of giving me a spiritual focus for this trip. I need grace, and I need to know I need grace, and I need to accept that I need grace, and I need to accept grace, and I need to learn to give grace.

I feel like God has moved on all these fronts in the past 72-96 hours. My most recent “EH YO! DON’T FORGET ABOUT GRACE!” moment was me half-crawling, half-climbing on to this bunkbed so I could write this entry: In the past four days, I’ve slept less than 8 hours. This is not the normal WashU not-sleeping. This is pack the night before you go, can’t sleep on the plane because turbulence keeps you up and you’re really not supposed to sleep in a sitting position in the first place, drag 100+ lbs of luggage across two international airports, get charged unexpected fees, land at 7am but your body knows its really 3am, drag more luggage, unpack, walk 2 miles, pay close attention at orientation b/c the info is actually useful kinda not-sleeping.

Try climbing into a bunk with that on your back. … Clearly, grace got me on this bunk.

Which, of course, begs the question, “What is grace?” Looking at ol' Ephesians up there, I feel like grace is that thing that overwhelms the human for the glory of God. And, like I said before, I need it, need to know I need it, etc. A lot of examples of how God has been teaching me about grace has been rolling around as of late. The one that sticks out to me most is this whole race/university situation.

As I’m sure you’ll be unsurprised to know, I’m the only Black student on this trip. I am one of two WashU students. Real talk, it’s hard not being able to refer to Black culture or WashUness. While I can talk to the other WashU student about WashU things, it just isn’t the same as it is with my close friends. It sucks sometimes. My human-ness wants me to crawl up and be anti-social and not see how some of the St. Lawrence kids are trying to be sensitive to the fact that I’m not one of them. My ability to stay social is acceptance of grace. The act of writing this to you is an admittance that I need grace. When one of the St. Lawrence kids does rub me the wrong way, I correct him/her without treating his/her life (too much). That’s giving (some) grace. Real talk, it’s gunna take some grace to deal with some of these people, but that’s part of what God’s teaching me right?

Lord. I’m tired.

I want to get deeper into this grace thing, but ima have to catch you guys later. And I’ll try to reply to comments when I have time and energy to give a thoughtful response to each of you =)

*it’d be greatly appreciated if some of you could post a verse or two that deals directly with it