Grace Grace

Since I've become a teacher, I've learned a lot about grace. It's sort of like my previous post about Jesus Saves.; I knew about the concept of grace, but I'm not sure I ever knew what it really looked like.

I know that I'm saved by grace and that grace is amazing. I've sung the song, "O to grace how great a debtor, daily I'm constrained to be", but I'm not sure that I ever knew exactly what grace was.

Students and children have a way of making abstract concepts concrete. I have a student who pushes my buttons at every turn. He asks questions constantly and he pushes boundaries. I'm sure that it is just how he's wired, but it is very trying at times.

He didn't bring his paper to class one day, and I had made it abundantly clear that students without their papers would be asked to leave class and they would take an absence. This student can't afford anymore absences because he would fail if he missed anymore. I extended grace. Pure, unadulterated grace. I could have failed him; it was totally within my rights. I could have held him to the letter of the law, but I didn't. He didn't deserve it. Grace.

I have another student who needs to graduate. Life is really, really tough for her right now. She's got a lot going on. Her paper was due, and she didn't turn it in. I extended her deadline. Grace.

I like to appear tough. I like to have my students think and know that what I say I mean, but there is always room for grace, undeserved favor.

It's the students who push me the most who I find it hardest and most rewarding to extend grace to. I sometimes get angry because they then don't handle the grace the right way, but how many times have I abused God's grace, yet he still extends it over and over again.

Where would we be without grace. Where would life have taken us if God hadn't handed down our sentence...free because Christ paid the penalty, and I choose to release you. GRACE.

May your day be filled with GRACE and you know the power of it.