Ordinary Time

Our pastor sometimes concludes our service by asking where we've seen God at work this week. The week of Thanksgiving I had an answer in mind. I had seen Him in my friend Emily. We had gone to Emily's house for Thanksgiving this year. Emily and her husband Jeremy have six children. Four of them are boys--Green Mountain Boys is what they call them. All of them bundles of endless energy and enthusiasm!

At one point Emily and I stood talking in the kitchen as she was preparing a baked apple dish. She had two neat rows of carved out apples which she stuffed with a raisin, brown sugary mix. She placed them in a Pyrex pan and set it on the counter. Just as she did, her 3 year old Green Mountain Boy decided to climb up on that same counter in search of something. As he did, all of his kinetic force came down on the counter, which caused the apple dish to fly off and spill. Now the whole apple dish was undone and strewn across the Linoleum floor.

I'm sure this occurrence wasn't out of the ordinary. But this day wasn't ordinary--it was Thanksgiving and we were their guests. Now, part of the meal was covering the floor like a Pollock art piece.

We all froze for a second, our eyes soaking in the scene. Anger, frustration, a stern scolding, none of it would have surprised me. But in the heat of the moment, grace is what bubbled up from Emily's core.

She scooped that little guy up and softly explained what went wrong. They exchanged a few more words and she ended the conversation by telling him that she forgave him. Then she further affirmed him with a hug and a kiss. She then set him down and he instantly bounded off looking for the next place his energy could land.

The whole scene, set against the backdrop of domestic life, once again reminded me of God's grace. It pops up again and again in ordinary time, in the hum drum of normal life. When we least deserve it, grace floods over us, even in moments of Green Mountain kinetic energy!