What you don't know is I've lived in the basement of another family for almost a year now. It wasn't a secret, but I get so weary of pity that I keep much close to my chest. This is my reality right now and I trust that it is temporary. I refuse to believe we will be statistics who slip into poverty unseen and work to claw our way out. While there are challenges in still sharing a room with my daughter, and being in smaller quarters than we had been used to, and not having a real kitchen to feed my family from- there have been so many wonderful things. The yard here is incredible. Two acres of fenced in beauty that is not just safe, but nourishing. The kids are in good schools where they are doing well, we are close to our beloved church, and I have friends tucked into the county far and wide. The family we live with are both veterans from my adored Marine Corps and they have one sweet and lively toddler whom my children have adopted as one of their own. They have been incredible to give us space and always make us feel that this is our home. They've never made us feel anything but welcomed and appreciated; but. On days like today? My heart swings hard and falls and my brain tosses around all the anxiety that I've worked hard to avoid for so very long. The heavy weight of knowing that my large and loud family is in their intimate space while they traverse their own struggles and rolling hills of family has been hard. I sometimes feel guilty that we have kept them from half of their home for a year, and that we've been here through several deployments and sweet, private homecomings. I cringe when the kids yell, I feel guilty after I do, and I often feel the desperation to pay back all I feel I've taken. They have never given me anything but grace, and have never once disrespected us, made me feel less-than, or made me feel guilt. All that I'm feeling is self inflicted. As I cried in the shower, acutely aware of my loud and hyper children on this calm and peaceful holiday from work, I scanned my heart to discover why I was spiraling into this pit of self deprecation and guilt... and the word whispered softly in my heart: grace.
We all need grace, we all want grace, and yet many times when it is offered we fear it's being offered with judgement or expectation and we rise up quickly to atone for what we cannot pay. Grace as I understand it to be is unmerited, meaning by its very existence it cannot be earned or paid for. It just is. It is pure, beautiful, healing and safe. It is the biggest gift we can offer and yet often the hardest to accept. It is the sanctuary of blessing and space that allows the weary to pause and heal and repair what needs attention. For my family, this gifting of grace in the form of a literal home it has been the exact remedy we have needed to get through the immediate slashing of our hearts and souls and space to rest unjudged while we have worked to wade through the muddy waters that rise in divorce. It has been more beautiful and protected than I could have ever provided on my own, it has been a place where I could fall back into a more vulnerable position and breathe my way through the labor pains of moving into, through and past the pain of a ravaged family. Grace has given my children more normalcy and stability than we've had in a long time, and grace has allowed me time to grieve, wake up to life again and work towards the very real role of provider and protector. The guilt and shame that is trying to creep in and tarnish the shine that grace is leaving on my story would be an insult to the ones who have poured it out so freely. To sit in fear and guilt would be to deny the gift that has been powerfully given. To stay in that place of anguish and worry and anxiety would be to turn inward to myself and wound the ones I so desperately want to honor. The reality is that there isn't much I can do to return payment for all that has been done for me through this family. A family who hardly knew us but knew that our hearts and bodies needed a soft place to fall. A family who loved us more than their own comfort, and welcomed us in in order to meet a need I could not meet on my own. On this Memorial Day, as we honor servicemen and women and remember those who have given all, I am keenly aware that these two veterans have continued to pour out their lives in service long after the ink on their discharge papers have dried. They've served when no one knew, never announcing to the world their act of charity and grace. They did it expecting nothing in return, rather choosing to reach down into the sticky mess and help to pull me out. They did it with hearts of service and grace, and on this Memorial Day, I'm slain with that truth.
Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends. -John 15:13
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