Lessons in grace: a beautiful burden

Christmas day with Willemien 
Originally uploaded by sraabs

When I have thought of grace in the past, in the years of my spiritual walk, I have most often thought of it in relation to what I receive. God is gracious. His grace lifted me. I am alive because of His great grace in my life. But this past month has been teaching me something that some of you have probably known for a lobng time – we are given grace in order to share grace.

At the end of January we moved our sister in Christ, Willemien, to a nursing home. Willemien has no family – not because she is 92 and all have passed on, but because she was in a family of two children and she herself never had children (and neither did her brother). We – the church family in Maastricht – are her family. As time has gone by we, and Willemien, have seen that she needs more help. We saw that she was approaching a time when she would need more help than could be given in her home. Willemien assumed the time to move would not become before the time to go Home to be with her Father, God. But the time to move came.

Moving is never easy. Both Shirley and I moved around a lot as children. I always found it exhilarating – a new place, a new start, an adventure. But it also meant that I didn’t spend too much time making friends. We have now lived in our house here in Belgium much longer than any other place in my life. Willemien had lived a good 40 years in her flat in Maastricht. So moving was not going to be easy. Not only does one have to downsize, but it would mean that her dog could not travel with her to her new situation.

Before the time came (which is a story in itself for another time), I had let Willemien know that I was willing to do everything that was necessary to take good care of her – even if that meant that she would be angry with me. She assured me that she would never be angry with me. But I knew that dementia has its own rules, and I prepared myself. When the time came, Willemien seemed to be fine – until the second week in her new ‘home’ started.

On Sunday afternoon we visited her and she did not want to get out of bed. She did not want to look at us. She did not want to talk to us. Would we please leave as quickly as possible and leave her alone. We had stolen her dog, locked her in this place where there was nothing to do and stolen all of her things. It was then that I felt how heavy grace can be.

I have read it so many times. But remember again: ‘God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten son’, ‘but lGod shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us’ and ‘who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself’ (John 3:16; Rom. 5:8 and Phil. 2:6-7). God gave me everything and I didn’t deserve it. Worse still, I treated Him abominably - and sometimes still do! And still He loves me and is there for me.

Do we understand what that feels like? Do we understand what that costs? He knows that He is giving us the very best, everything that we really need – and it is all really good. But we don’t see it. We have forgotten. We are focused on other things, Or we simply cannot fathom what is going on. But grace continues.

Willemien is doing much better this week. She is getting settled in, realizing that this new phase in her life is also blessed by God. And I am thankful for the lessons we can learn and how this makes me love Him so much more, every day.