Oxymoronic Grace

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Grace is simple, but it is also an extremely difficult concept to grasp. As our children have gotten older (15-18), we have tried to make Christmas not so much about getting as giving. As a result, we’ve tried to avoid giving meaningless gifts just to give gifts and we’ve tried to give more. As a mom also known as the “Christmas grinch,” I have to admit that it has been rather appealing to me; the older I have gotten, the less inclined I am to enjoy the trappings of commercial Christmas, thus the lack of inclination to put up a Christmas tree and buy an obligatory gift for anyone and everyone has earned me this moniker. I could be pious and say that the cause of all of this is an appreciation of the grace bestowed upon me by Christ, but I won’t because it really isn’t true. The more I learn, the more I realize how little I know about grace. One of the children came home from winter retreat to find that my husband and son had put up a Christmas tree this year (because they liked it and wanted to over the protestations of the “grinch”) and said, “I’m so confused!” Needless to say, when she received a gift from her father on Christmas morning, she was thrown for a loop—much the same way we are when grace is extended to us from Christ. We aren’t expecting it; it isn’t deserved; therefore, it confuses us greatly. My husband gave me an unexpected and extravagant Christmas gift, too—a Nook tablet—and my first response? “But I didn’t get anything for him!” I could have refused the gift because I didn’t have one to give in return, but then I would have been refusing his grace. The inability to receive the grace extended to us is simply pride because grace is extended to us without us being worthy or able to give anything in return. I’m seeing this grace in my husband, and it’s growing and producing an incredible fruit that I’m hungry for. I’m seeing that people who “get” grace are able to give it away. So here it is: grace is receiving from Christ without being able to give back, but grace is also the ability to give like Christ without expecting anything in return—an oxymoronic grace.

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