Victim of Grace by Robin Jones Gunn

Author:Robin Jones Gunn [Gunn, Robin Jones]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780310412670
Publisher: Zondervan
Published: 2013-04-14T16:00:00+00:00

I went outside to get some air. I remembered the way Hannah had wept openly before the Lord in the temple. She cried so hard and with such passion that Eli the priest thought she was drunk. My tears seemed to match hers in intensity as they came from a deep and troubled place. The world was in chaos. My husband and daughter were hundreds of miles away in Portland. My son was more than two thousand miles away in Florida. My father was inching his way to heaven one shallow breath after another. And yet in the midst of all this anguish, he and his brother had just made peace.

Reconciliation comes into the rubble of many fallen lives and shines brightly like a single candle dispelling much darkness. And in the light of that candle, my daddy winked at me.

In all the terror, pain, and wickedness on this damaged planet, God’s undaunted plan of reconciliation is ever alive. He wants us to get that, to step into the secret because we belong to him. In the wink of an eye, God’s goodness and his unending love can prevail. What once was shattered can be redeemed.

On the day my father made peace with his brother, he closed his eyes, and for the next five weeks, he remained closed up and silent, breathing only in faint whispers. He never opened his eyes again. My mother was beside him when his last sigh was released, and no breath of earthly air was drawn back in.

We assembled at his bedside and timidly, reverently expressed an unexpected sense of lightness at his passing. He had been set free. He no longer inhabited the frame of flesh. His home was no longer in this world.

I could picture my dad running to Jesus, down the streets of gold, on legs that now cooperated. I could imagine him singing to his Savior the way he used to sing in the shower when his great tenor voice would reverberate throughout the house.

I saw in his final weeks how grace had opened the way to peace. All the years of disconnection from his brother were resolved in a single phone call. A call that was made long after my dad had the ability to use his own words to express what was on his heart. Being reconciled to his brother happened when grace made a way for forgiveness to be extended and expressed. The result was peace. Peace between two brothers, both victims of grace.

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