Grace Must Wound

"Grace must wound before it heals."

That's a quote from the author Flannery O'Connor. I first heard it, however, from one of my favorite singer/songwriters, Justin McRoberts. I loved it the first time I heard it, and I still continue to love it now. Not because it is happy and optimistic, indeed, it is not. I love it because of its truth.

Grace must wound before it heals.

Any who have experienced the Grace of God may know the truth found in this phrase. The grace of God is a gift that is profoundly difficult to understand, partially because it is just that: a gift. In Ephesians, Paul describes this grace, which God has "freely given us in the One he love" (1:6). That grace is a free gift to all, offered to us through Jesus' death on the cross so many years ago. We are forgiven - completely forgiven. So what is this about grace wounding so much?

Well, think about it. If you're a parent, imagine that your child is playing outside on this bright, warm autumn day. Now, he knows that the rule is to stay in the back yard if you're not around to go with him where he'd like. Today, however, he's feeling a little like pushing the limits. You look out the front door for one reason or another and see him playing dangerously close to the street. Perhaps even going in the street every now and again, chasing after the ball he's been playing with. Would you run outside to your little boy (or girl, of course) and accept his heart-tugging apologies with absolutely no consequences? Of course not! Most parents would follow up behavior like this with some measure of discipline other than "Oh honey, it's okay, just promise you won't do it again." Most likely, some time in time-out or some other such reasonable punishment would be considered.

To me, that is a little bit like what the grace of God is like. He is always forgiving us, never turning one away, but we cannot sin without expecting some form of consequences. Sometimes, those consequences, that discipline, really hurts. Nobody likes to be disciplined, do they? Now, some who have come from a home where discipline was not really discipline, but abuse. Please understand that God's discipline should not be seen like that. God's discipline is his way of lovingly guiding us in the right direction. That grace is free to us, but sometimes, it is going to hurt a little in our hearts. We have to understand that God is not "sending us to our room" because he's angry with us, but because he would like us to think about what it is that we have done. Perhaps this example is a bit too pre-school for some, but it makes sense to me, because as grown up as we all think we are, we all have our times where we act like spoiled children. God, our father, acts accordingly, and only wants the best for us.

So while sometimes graces hurts as it reminds us what the right thing to do is, it always goes the extra mile to heal our hurts and bring us closer to God. While this is still impossible to understand - why would God choose to forgive sinners such as we? - but it is nonetheless free and real, and offered to us by God at this very moment.

Surely Justin McRoberts or Ms. O'Connor could wax far more theologically on this subject, but these are just my thoughts on the subject, for now. For now.