Eating the most expensive scrambled eggs while pondering cheap grace.

Very interesting critique. It left me wanting to read more from this theologian who revered the hard work of salvation. I’m more curious, however, to know how Julie’s health concerns turned out.

Some medical issues in my own family have lately also afforded me some small epiphanies about the grace that can come from suffering. Without getting into too many personal details, my small experiences of grace was not afforded by the personal suffering caused by the denial of pleasure and the acceptance of pain that naturally follows from the meticulous obedience to strict doctrinal rules. I’m not saying that the suffering that flows from such strict obeisance doesn’t provide a path to God’s grace – I’m just explaining my humble experience of grace through suffering.

Let me first explain that the voluntary form of suffering that I am describing does not come as naturally to me as it does for other people that I have known. I always believed in personal responsibility, in doing one’s duty for people who also do their duty. I have always cherished and guarded my own personal honor and integrity in this way to the point of righteous indignation at those who challenged my integrity and displayed a lack of honor on their own part. I like to be affronted by unfairness. It surprised me therefore to find out that part of the suffering that engendered my small experiences of grace required that I completely subordinate my righteous pride of integrity in proper rule following beneath the needs of the person that I love.

Again, at the risk of getting too personal, let me provide an illustration. With Amnesic Mild Cognitive Impairment (aMCI) a person’s memory is declining at a rate that is greater than the average for a person of that age. With such memory loss, as a once highly confident person increasingly loses assurance of their grasp of reality, that person’s anxiety and distress naturally increases, and the increase in anxiety can actually exacerbate the memory loss. That person therefore, without even initially understanding why, can lash out and cry irrationally in their fear and distress. The family member recipients’ first reaction to this erratic behavior can be pretty dismissive and self protective, or even long sufferingly resentful. At least that was my first pride protecting reaction: “This is totally unfair”.

As this has progressed, I finally recognized that more was wrong here than that my family member had become increasingly embittered and self concerned with age. After more difficultly than one might imagine, we finally got a diagnosis and some treatment. Knowing that, if our situations were reversed, this person would have turned over Heaven and Hell to try to figure out the cause of my distress, I can’t tell you how guilty I feel about the time this took me to figure out.

As doctors continue to formulate a prognosis, we have also been provided with some appreciable improvements in treating the symptoms. I can tell you that just knowing what is going on has been, literally, a Godsend. Once we knew what was happening, we have joined together as a family like never before. Friends and caregivers have been amazing.

I relate all of this, not to glean sympathy for me or my family. Most of us go through suffering of some sort, especially if we live long enough, and many have it far worse. We are all going to die of something some day. So please spare your pity for those worse off. Really.

My point in confessing this experience of suffering isn’t to model for readers here my latest in horse hair shirts. Instead, what I am relating comes from a place of bountiful love, gratitude and joy.

If it is grace that my family is experiencing, and I think it is, I don’t suppose it’s “cheap” if one sees it as a price in some sales transaction. For me at least, however, I don’t really see such grace through suffering as a transaction between me and God. It’s a joyful gift that we receive the more give ourselves away for free. My bargain basement price for grace is to give to someone in my family that I love more than my life. Imagine what it takes to give your suffering away to strangers and even enemies? In my selfish sinners protective shell, can’t imagine that generosity of self, or the joy, but I’m trying, I’m still trying.