Grace and all of it's Mercies

"Since this is Aunt Bethany's 80th Christmas,why don't we have her
say grace."

(pause)

"They want you to say grace."

"Grace? She passed away 30 years ago!"

"They want you to say grace.(pause) The blessing!"

Aunt Bethany bows her head and begins:

"I pledge allegiance, to the flag of the United State of America..."


This is one of my favorite dinner scenes, coming from the film
Christmas Vacation.

You can look at grace in a humorous way and you can also learn grace the hard way through situations in life.

The other day I was following behind a car when it suddenly ran over a squirrel which was trying to run across the street. ( why must squirrels try crossing when a car is coming and then try and manuever between the tires as if it were a maze?)This reminded me of my first lesson on administering a form of grace when I was 14 years old:

My grandfather had picked me up one day so I could go help paint his house. While driving down the main road leading to the house, we came across a black and white kitten lying in the middle of the street. It had been hit by a car and was barely alive, quivering in pain. My grandfather pulled off to the side of the road. As he got out of the car I asked him what was he going to do. To me it looked like there was nothing you could do to save this tiny creature. My grandfather didn't answer me as I proceeded to follow out of the car. He opened the trunk and pulled out a small rubber mallet. No traffic was approaching as I followed him toward the kitten. I'll spare you the gory details, but my grandfather took the mallet and lightly tapped the top of the kitten's head. I, being the 14 year old wimp that I was, watched in a very squeemish way. As he took the dead kitten to the side of the road he quietly explained to me that he had to take the pain away so the kitten wouldn't suffer any longer.

Believers in Christ are asked to be stewards of God's grace:

Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God's grace in it's various forms. (1Pet.4:10)

Showing mercy and compassion can be easy, but also can be hard on the eyes of those who don't understand it.

In a recent "rerun episode" of Everybody Loves Raymond, the Barone family spend Thanksgiving with Robert's wife Amy's family. Things don't start out so well when the men find out there is no television set in the house to watch football. Then a bird innocently flies into the window and gets hurt. Everyone is beside themselves seeing the bird hurt. Amy's mom takes the bird and tells everyone she'll take care of it and brings it into the kitchen. When she comes back out they ask how the bird is. Amy's mom answers,"Fine." They all ask her what did she do, her reply comes in the the motioning of a snap, sound effects included. Everyone falls into shock as they begin to argue. Amy's dad explains that his wife had to put it out of it's misery. The entire Barone family is now up in arms for the rest of the day.That is until Amy's mom comes out of the kitchen with a large bird fresh out of the oven and places it on the dinner table. All is forgiven. "Come on everybody, dig in!" "Hey,save me a turkey leg!"

Like I said, grace can be found humorously, and it can be found the hard way, but either way, just go ahead and administer it to the world.