I was living in El Salvador. I was working in the kitchen. I was cutting mangos. It was the end of the month, the end of my energy, the end of all that heat on heat on heat. And I was done. Cece cuts mangos every day. But this day, she looked up at me. She smiled, slipped the ring off her finger, and handed it to me. I smiled and told her it was beautiful (in my “fluent” Spanish). I tried it on, smiled some more, and handed it back to her. But she refused. “No, it’s yours,” she said. “Take it, it’s for you.” And I was blown away. Here stands this woman with nothing to her name handing me what is undoubtedly one of her most prized possessions. What did I do to earn such a gift?
And now I sit in Albania. Where the culture and the currency and the climate are vastly different. We walked to the home of our ministry contact on the first day we were here. We were worn out, jet lagged, and sitting with our brand new team (yep, I’ve got a new team, y’all! And they’re awesome! I’ll introduce Team Rooted Movement soon!). “Do you guys want something to drink? Tea, water, coffee?,” our host asks. Here we were, sitting in a home, an actual, real, live home. There were no ants biting our ankles, no sweltering heat, no sweat pouring down our faces. And they were offering us coffee. I don’t deserve this, I thought. I didn’t do anything to deserve this. Didn’t Jesus know that I hadn’t worked for my treat yet? Didn’t he know I had to earn my coffee?
And suddenly, I had jumped back 2 years. I was sitting with a friend, discussing how upset I was that I was a human form of a natural disaster. “I should be able to function on my own. I don’t need people. I shouldn’t need to need people,” I said. My friend looked at me and asked,
“If you can’t accept help from your friends, how do you think you can accept redemption from Christ?”
When we spend our lives convinced we have to be perfect, that we are perfect, in our minds we eliminate a need for Christ. But we need him so much. The whole point is that we don’t deserve it.
I don’t deserve His love because I cut mangos with an El Salvadoran woman.
I don’t deserve His love because I serve the youth with an Albanian pastor.
I don’t deserve His love because I never need help from my American friends.
Here’s the thing….
Plain and simple, I don’t deserve His love.
But the beauty of grace is that it makes life not fair.
