When you need grace

For the past few days, a doe has been stashing her baby in various areas in our yard while she forages. We’ve tried to be watchful with Lucy. Though that big Aussiedor of ours has become less interested in deer in recent years, she still might chase a fawn and unintentionally hurt it.

We thought the deer had left, but before I let Lucy out while I worked in my little studio, I tiptoed around a couple of areas I thought the fawn might be. It seemed clear, but as I was heading inside, I heard a high-pitched squeak and turned to see a flash of a white tail. There was the fawn—frightened by my presence and fleeing the yard.

I disrupted it without realizing it was there. Trying to do the right thing to save its life, instead, I had sent it out on its own.

I hoped the doe was not too far away and would soon check on the fawn so they could be reunited. I tried to not to think the word “coyote,”  and was very distressed about the whole thing because of my blunder.

I thought of a recent Bible study I was in where we were talking about a similar though much more important situation when others sometimes fail us and how we fail them. Someone gave the example of a time when they unintentionally failed a friend—simply by an oversight and how badly they felt about it. It’s happened to every one of us.

Here, my friends, is where grace comes in.

Do we deserve grace?

No, we do not.

By definition, grace is undeserved and unearned.

Even with our best intentions, we will miss the mark. And yet, God has made provision for our humanity. Grace is how we find the ability to move on past our mess-ups, our shortcomings, and our failures. Grace is how we hold our heads up rather than bow to the blame/shame game. Grace is where we find life.

Max Lucado wrote, “Grace is God’s best idea. His decision to ravage a people by love, to rescue passionately, and to restore justly—what rivals it? Of all his wondrous works, grace, in my estimation, is the magnum opus.”

There are many verses having to do with grace, but from experience, the Apostle Paul  knew much about grace and wrote in Ephesians 2:5,  “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast.”

Grace extends past our shortcomings to our gross sins and Paul knew this as he held the coats of those who stoned Stephen and persecuted Christians before his conversion. This gift of grace is ours through the work of Jesus on Calvary. He paid the price for it.

I heard someone say recently that the older they get, the more the enemy reminds them of their past failures. I experience that as well, but when that happens, we can also be reminded of the grace of God poured out for us.

If you are dogged by a past failure, confess, surrender, and repent of it to the Lord. Then receive the grace that only He can give. 

So, with grace abounding I am praying that the God who knows when a sparrow falls to the ground will take care of the fawn. I have every reason to believe He will.