Opportunity of GRACE & MERCY

Friday turned out to be an interesting day, yet in the Thompson house hold when is it not interesting.

It was such a beautiful day….warm and sunny. Perfect day for accidents. I have no idea why that is except that people are just enjoying the beauty or they are so “intoxicated” by fresh air, or the fact that people are wearing….interesting and less clothing than normal that they run off the road or run others off the road.

Earlier in the day as Joshua, Faith and I were driving home a large truck began to move over in my lane…where I happened to be driving. I beeped my horn which seemed to annoy him and he then slithered in behind me. I waved and smiled and we made it home safely.

We did some things around the house before we had to go and pick up my friend’s daughter from school. It was on our way home that our “interesting” day unfolded into an interesting opportunity to reflect Christ’s love. I was driving along and noticed how busy the road had become. Remembering what happened earlier I began to pray, “Lord, it is such a beautiful day, I just ask that you would give us a safe journey back to the house and…..why am I moving left????????”

A small red car apparently did not see me (huge black van) and she nestled up beside me, pushing me into on coming traffic. I began to honk my horn and she then realized there was a huge black van attached to her left side. We both pull over and I will admit inside I was a bit hot (I don’t mean temperature wise)….my children are in this vehicle not to mention my friend’s daughter.
I step out of the van and begin to examine the side as the gentleman from the little red car runs over expressing rapidly, “We have insurance, I’m so sorry, we have insurance.” He then began to share that his girl friend did not see me and she had just been in an accident last week, explaining the crumpled front of the car. As I turned from my van, noticing nothing wrong with it, I then looked at her. She was standing before me…trembling. Her face showed fear, her eyes were tearing and her mouth was trembling as her body shook. It was at that moment that I realized the full extent of the power of God’s grace that has been given us. (not that I did not realize it before….but God allowed me to see it in a circumstance outside of words and study.)
I looked at her and told her it was okay, that we did not need to call the police or insurance. “You are okay, we are okay….just go.” I will never forget the look on her face.

How many of us stand before God thinking He is going to zap us, fine us, throw us away in some dark dungeon because of the sin in our lives? Either we have forgotten or we truly do not realize the power of HIS grace. That Christ’s blood covers us (if we are HIS). That as we stand there trembling…He looks at us and says, “Go…It’s been covered.” GRACE. Now, in no way am I saying that we continue sinning. What I am saying is accepting His grace and turning from that sin and going in another direction. (Romans 6)

With this little adventure a small door of opportunity opened to share with a young girl what grace means. (My friend's daughter. She is all but five and her attention span went from “what is grace” to “can we jump on the trampoline”, but the opportunity was there and for a brief moment she was able to see something out of the ordinary)
I could have called the cops and used the power to do so…after all…I was wronged, right? In doing so I would have missed an opportunity to show someone in our community…someone we are trying to reach for the love of Christ what forgiveness means, what HIS mercy means….who Christ is, and that He is waiting for them to "step out of their car" and accept His Grace, His forgiveness.

“All this is from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: That God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And He has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s Ambassadors, as though God were making HIS appeal through us.” 2 Corinthians 5:18-20 (sections in bold done by Angel)

May we never forget that we are HIS AMBASSADORS.