It was August 2nd the summer going into my junior year of high school, I was at a horse show waiting ringside to go in for my second jumping round of the day, I had been disqualified from the first round on account of too many refusals. That was the first time in almost ten years of riding that I’d been asked to leave the ring and it didn’t sit right with me. Actually, it troubled me quite a lot.
My room back home was decorated with ribbons from horse shows, and at some point during my years of showing; I’d started hanging only blues, reds, and yellows (firsts, seconds, and thirds). Anything less than third was shoved into a box in my closet. I thought about the ribbons on my wall as I walked in for my second round, but the empty promise I made to myself to acquire some more self-worth that only came in the colors blue, red, and yellow wasn’t enough to ease the tension in my muscles. The horse felt my nervousness and I his, neither of us wanting to take the reigns in this situation.
Three jumps into the round I was in the dirt, the horse refused at the third or fourth jump and darted out sideways throwing me off balance in the saddle. As I overcorrected, now leaning too far to the left, he bucked and reared sending me flying through the air. If I close my eyes I can still see the red dirt coming closer and closer until everything turns black. But not black because I’d passed out, I wish I had, black because I wouldn’t open my eyes on account of the pain I felt shooting through my left arm. As long as I kept them shut there was a chance that all of this was a dream, opening would make the reality of my situation as palpable as the pain in my arm. It felt like someone was taking a hammer to my shoulder over and over and over again.
Two years later and I am not in college riding horses and studying equine medicine and altogether enjoying the view from atop my high horse as I’d planned to be back then. Instead I’m sweating in the muggy and buggy heat of The Philippines praising God for the gift of a broken arm, because without it I wouldn’t be here. It was because of this accident that I was able to better understand what it feels like to receive the grace of God and in turn develop a relationship with Him in which I can see He is so much more than a man in the clouds that grants blue ribbons to the good girls and none to the bad. I actually learned three things about the grace of God through breaking my arm. First, that grace is not something we deserve. Second, that there is no such thing as a fall from grace. And third, that the best way to show gratitude for a gift we don’t deserve in the first place is to share it with others.
The whole not deserving grace, but receiving it anyways thing may be obvious to some, and somewhere along the way a Sunday school teacher or camp counselor may have explained this to me, but it didn’t make sense then. I received blue ribbons because I rode well, shouldn’t grace work in the same way? But the whole point of grace is that it is the unmerited salvation we receive as sinners and on top of that the blessings God showers over us just because He loves us, but never because we deserve it. So when I didn’t understand that grace wasn’t something that could be earned, I didn’t understand grace at all. Finally grasping that grace was a gift led me to be able to understand that it is something we will never stop receiving no matter how far we fall from it, there is no such thing as a fall from grace. Let me explain.
Whenever some celebrity cheats on their spouse, or an athlete abuses steroids, or someone well-off is arrested for embezzling money, we refer to it as their “fall from grace.” But that’s not a fall from grace at all, that’s a fall off of your own accomplishments, grace is what cushions your fall when you hit rock bottom. Most people spend their whole lives constructing a pedestal for themselves from their own achievements, but the thing about structures like that is that they are always very shaky, we are all bound to fall at some point and the higher your pedestal, the harder you’ll fall. Humanity fell hard and fast when we crucified a man named Jesus, but despite the pain we caused God on that day He loved us and showered us with grace, and He continues to as we continue to sin. So how do we show appreciation for a gift that we can never earn, but is given to us most abundantly when we are in our darkest of days? We share it.
When we don’t at least try to respond to the grace given to us by Jesus by giving it to others in return, we end up holding others to a standard expecting them to be perfect and then disappointed when they are not. The problem with this is that we’ll never be happy with them because they’ll just keep on not being perfect as all humans do, continuing to disappoint us. In turn, we are so frustrated and disappointed all the time, we’ll never be a source of real love in their lives. Another thing about us is no matter how hard we try even our best love is just limited expressions of the unlimited, unconditional love we receive from Jesus. So when we don’t feel like one person loves us, we don’t tend to repay them with as much as we normally would, or even at all. However, the sooner we can realize that there will never be perfection in our lives in this world, the sooner we can realize that the part Jesus plays in our lives is to shower love and grace on us despite all of our flaws and all he asks of us in return is to spread it around a little and tell people you got it from Him.
About a week ago, everyone on the four teams that I’m currently living with just so happened to be sitting in the common area of the house at the same time, one of the boys started strumming his guitar and it quickly turned into a very impromptu, but very powerful worship session. As I sat on the floor, I thought back to that August day, the injury itself was painful and the stinging feeling of having lost the one thing that I found worth in hurt even more. But as I sat there, God replaced those thoughts with these; had I never broken my arm I would never have gotten plugged into the church or the youth group that made me fall in love with Christ again, I never would have considered taking this gap year to travel and spread the Gospel, and I never would have understood grace the way that I feel I do now.
For a long time I saw my accident as just that, an accident, but it wasn’t, it was an event that God would use to break me and then shape me. Just when we think that we’ve taken a deadly plunge from God’s grace into the deepest darkest pits of Hell is when God breaks the fall with His grace and you look down at the net of grace that caught you and then back up and realize it wasn’t grace you were falling from at all, but your own ideals. Doesn’t it just make sense that a God who would descend from Heaven to save us from ourselves would also offer His grace most abundantly at your lowest points? God’s grace will look different to everyone, but one thing remains the same, it’s what catches you when you fall. To me grace looks like red dirt and a broken arm.
Oh… something else pretty great came out of breaking my arm, a funny anesthesia video!
