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Recently I was in a doctor’s office … when a young mother with long brown hair and a gentle face entered, pushing in a wheelchair a child three or four years old. The child obviously was disabled: hands unable to grasp anything, her arms and legs flailing helplessly, her eyes unable to hold focus. Her voice could not make syllables but only squeals or little wails. Mother positioned the child’s chair so that they were face-to-face. She began softly singing and doing the hand motions to “The Itsy-Bitsy-Spider” directly in front of the child’s face, to attract her attention. She repeated it over and over, sometimes catching the child’s hand and kissing it, stroking her hair; she looked into the child’s eyes and whispered, with enormous tenderness, “I love you.” For a moment, I felt like an unwitting intruder into a very sacred space.

Is this how we are, I wondered, before our God who wants to love us just as tenderly? Our limbs flailing aimlessly, unable to unify our energies to respond to the gift of life we have been given; our eyes unable to focus on the love God tries over and over in so many ways to reveal to us; Our voices unable to respond coherently to this God whom our minds cannot comprehend? And is this why we so often turn to the word mercy when we want to speak of our God?

When God’s love touches us in our neediness, the sorrow and suffering inherent in the human condition, we name it mercy. Mercy is perhaps the loveliest of all God’s qualities. This is the love that reaches into the dark spaces of our flailing and our failings, our losing and our dying. Mercy enters that space, picks us up and holds us tenderly until we are healed. Little by little, this love draws our groping hands and wasted energies to purposeful service; it looks directly into our uncomprehending eyes, hears our futile wails, and says, “No matter, I love you anyway. Come on…”  And so mercy brings us to ever new life.

—From “Living in the Mercy” by Elaine M. Prevallet

I shared this last night with the Wednesday Night group at the church where I serve. We eat together and take a few additional moments to check in on each other, and I usually offer a short devotional thought of some sort. What you just read (above) is what I offered last night.

Something about Prevallet’s recollection of the details of what she witnessed in that doctor’s office really pinged me. I think she described the encounter in such a way that it was really easy for me to segue into the point she was making.  And, I must add, it wasn’t about anyone else.  It was me.  I could see very plainly that “I” was that child.  I AM that child.  I think Elaine nailed it with “flailing and failings!”

I don’t think I often view myself as a recipient of mercy. I’ve thought of mercy as the thing that God reserves for the “big crap” I stepped into on purpose.  The really ugly stuff.  The horribly embarrassing stuff that nobody needs to know about… ever.  Grace and love covers a multitude of daily sins, but I viewed mercy as more God’s “final move” after I stepped on God’s benevolent last nerve. So, instead of a penal response, (what I truly deserve)… I got mercy.

The beauty of Prevallat’s offering is that it instantly hit me with a wave of humility. I’m not saying I’m humble. Oh, God no!  I’m not saying that at all.  I’m saying that the power of the story helped me to see how small, and shallow, and weak, and needy I am for God’s presence and ever-loving… mercy.  I know I’m gifted. I know I have capabilities. I know the Spirit’s voice and I try hard to follow the Way of Jesus. But when that wave of humility comes to do it’s job and humble us, it helps me to level the waters of humanity. Yes, I need mercy more than I realize I need mercy, but the humility is a reminder that I’m not alone or singled out as a piece of crap that’s living just on the edge of God’s vengeful anger. God’s response is always grace, often merciful, and always love. I certainly don’t always deserve that kind of response from our loving God. None of us do.

All of this to say, and I say it a lot these days, God loves what God creates. The condition of us, the flaws of us, the “flailing” of us may certainly damage us. Mercy says God isn’t put off because of our “humanness” and rotten choices. And it’s not just the big stuff.  Mercy moves in and out of our breathing… in syncopation with our existing.  If we get that, humility is the only access point to get our hearts involved with this holy mystery.

Mercy must be a pillar inside the goodness of God. God is good because of God’s own goodness. My declaration has nothing to do with God’s goodness. If I’m fortunate enough to see into this goodness, outside of my own doing, I realize how much mercy is in God’s goodness. The vastness of God’s goodness is pregnant with mercy.  I imagine more than we can ever comprehend.

Bless you.  Love you.

Mike

LIVE YOUR LOVE.  SOMEBODY NEEDS IT.