Pockets of Peppermints

Jude is my middle kid.  He is possibly the sweetest soul in my family.  When Jude laughs, he laughs big.  When Jude cries, he cries hard.  If Jude loves you, well, there is just nothing better.  We sat in church the other Sunday, and Jude leaned over like he always does and said, "Mom, I HAVE to go to the bathroom."  He scooted past our friends and family, and walked up the aisle to go to the bathroom.  Now, our church, like many others, has bowls of peppermints in the foyer.  Jude returned to the pew minutes later smiling his big, goofy, toothless grin.  As he scooted back through the sea of legs and purses, he began to hand a peppermint to all his friends and their parents.  He had counted the exact number, and had shoved enough for everyone in his pockets.  Written all over Jude's face was the pride in the giving and sharing.  He loved the whispered thank yous, and the obvious peppermints lodged in the cheeks of the people he desperately loves.  Jude is just one of those people.  If he has something good, he wants you to have some too.  He loves with his hands open.

My husband tells me that I am the reason that some churches don't carry peppermints.  I am the person who walks past the candy dish, grabs a handful, shoves them in  my purse and/or pockets to save for now, later and tomorrow too.  I may have to make a second or third trip if someone begs my peppermints off of me.  What can I say?  I love candy, and I like knowing I have more waiting, and you can go get your own in that very same bowl in the foyer...why would I need to bring it to you?  My pockets are full of peppermints for me.  My breath will be fresher than everyone thank you very much.

I am a peppermint hoarder.

I was running the other morning because you have to start running again after you post on your blog that you used to run in 2009.  So, I was running and praying for the different people in my life.  At one point I was praying for people that I know that are making some very destructive life choices.  To be honest, it really makes me angry to watch them choose to destroy their homes, their children, their marriages all for things that will ultimately destroy their lives.  I was praying that they would be able to see Jesus when God humbles them and they lose everything, and their marriages completely unravel and so on and so forth.  In the middle of  my prayer I heard at the bottom of my soul one word, "Nineveh." Nineveh.  Great.  I knew just where God was taking me.  We were headed to the book of Jonah, the belly of a fish and a city full of people a prophet did not want to save!

Do you remember the book of Jonah?  It's only four chapters tucked away in the Old Testament, but it is powerful.  God calls Jonah to Nineveh to warn the Ninevites that they must turn from their evil ways.  Jonah takes a ship in the opposite direction because he has no desire for the Ninevites to be saved.  Jonah wants the Ninevites to get what is coming to them because they deserve the wrath of God.  Jonah then finds himself in the midst of a God sized storm, thrown over board and swallowed by a big fish.  He prays and worships God promising to do what God asks of him.  Thus he follows God's will for his life to go to Nineveh.  He is vomited on dry land by the fish, and heads to Nineveh.  Jonah warns the Ninevites they will be overthrown in 40 days.  And guess what happens next...They repent.  All the people fast and pray to God and ask for forgiveness.  They make sacrifices to the one true God...even the King is fasting and praying.  Then the story gets even better.  The Ninevites don't get at all what they deserve!  God gives them His amazing grace, and His undeserved compassion.  So perfect.

The perfect story does not end here.  There is still Jonah, and he is still angry.  He is angry with God who saved his God dodging behind from being eaten alive by a big fish.  There is still Jonah who is fuming that God would give Nineveh the same second chance that He gave Jonah. 

"Oh Lord, is this not what I said when I was still at home?  That is why I was so quick to flee to Tarshish.  I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity." Jonah 4:2

And here I am...swimming in peppermints and grace.

I am a grace hoarder.

I full on expect God to give people that mock Him, or self destruct, or destroy their precious children and families exactly what they deserve.  I expect God to punish hurtful actions with even more hurtful circumstances.  I don't just expect Him to do it...I need Him to do it.  The wrongs must be made right, and grace can only be for the deserving...like me, for instance.

God is NOT a grace hoarder.

He knows what happens when people don't get "what they deserve":  those around them see Jesus.  When a life does not end in ruin, but instead in re-unification with Jesus Christ...everyone is astonished and wants to know more about this Jesus.  When a life stops short of all it has "coming to it", and turns around healing a family...God is seen in those places.  When people say things like, "Jesus just stepped in, and took over and I have never been the same,"...well, that is something unheard of, amazing...something only God can do.  When people get what they deserve, when their lives come crashing down, all any bystander can say is, "They got what they had coming to them."  Grace is a miracle.  Grace is uncontrollable.  Grace is the way that God works.  Grace is surprise peppermints for everyone.

Jesus tried to teach that kind of grace.  "Love your neighbor as yourself," was what He did best (Mark 12:31).  He healed the sick, ate with sinners, fed 5,000 hungry people and died on a cross because He knew the joy of living with God and He wanted us to know that joy too...even though we don't deserve it.  That is grace. 

So, my prayers are changing.  Instead of praying for others to be able to hang on in the storm they are creating, I am praying that I might be a little more like Jesus.  Maybe I could offer a safe haven, a shelter or at least an umbrella.  I am praying that I will release a little of that Grace I have been holding in my pocket and saving for me and my tomorrows.  I am praying that when I arrive at my Ninevehs I will sit down and fast alongside them, pray with them, love on them remembering the ditch that Jesus pulled me out of not all too long ago...because He loved me more than my mess.  He gave me grace I did not deserve.  He put my feet on a rock, and put peppermints in my pocket...to share with everyone I meet.  Especially the ones in Nineveh.

"But Nineveh has more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left, and many cattle as well.  Should I not be concerned about that great city?"  Jonah 4:11