Buckets Of Grace

Buckets of Grace

You must be compassionate, just as your Father is compassionate.

Sighing in frustration, my friend confided that there had been conflict between her daughter (the bride) and her daughter’s future mother-in-law as the wedding ceremony loomed. “I just wish she would remember that my daughter is in her early twenties; she’s still figuring this out,” my friend said. She is a wise and mature woman, someone who has spoken life over me repeatedly as I raised children just a step or two behind her.

I don’t know what the conflict was or what had caused the hurt feelings, but I took mental notes for my own potential son- and daughter-in-law, as well as for the other friends in my life who are still figuring things out as they enter new stages of life: first-time parenthood, raising teens, empty nesting, career restarts, medical diagnoses, and any other number of new experiences.

Those of us with more life experience under our proverbial belts are called to show grace and compassion when those coming behind us misstep, snub us inadvertently, and stumble. We should support our friends when they make newbie mistakes without even realizing it.

Jesus’ words in Luke 6 bring to my mind an image of a child’s red plastic beach bucket and of Jesus using that bucket to soak me in grace and compassion as he upends it over my head. Liquid grace and compassion, running in rivulets, covering me from head to toe. Jesus whispers that I should take up my own plastic bucket and pour that same grace and compassion over my relationships, especially over the women who are still working out what it means to be in a new season, doing a new thing, learning a new skill set.

When I’m tempted to take offense, Jesus is there, reminding me that I was once the new bride, the new girl in the office, the new mom—and gently reminding me of my own missteps as I entered an unknown season of life. And then I think of the red plastic beach bucket and what it has meant to me, and what it would mean for her.

— Julie

— Today’s Act of Friendship —

Imagine the pouring out of liquid grace and compassion when you are tempted to be irritated with a friend.