Mercy and the Allegory of Acne

Ok, so you kinda get a do-over when you make a certain type of mistake for the first time and then you learn your lesson. Well, there’s a whole second level of foolishness that goes beyond that. When you’ve made the mistake and you learn from it but then for whatever reasons, you do it again – in full light and knowledge of what you are doing. You know what I’m talking about.

Let me throw something out there about God’s grace and you may feel free to disagree with me. God’s grace is always there. It is never taken from us. However, in my personal experience I believe that God allows different seasons as to how he chooses to bestow his grace. For instance: he can decide to coddle you through something – even if you are in sin, you may still feel his presence near and he may remind you up front how much he loves you and is waiting for you. Or, you can be sinning and perhaps God has decided that he doesn’t want to hold your hand as much so he pulls his presence from your life: like those times where you feel the Holy Spirit has taken a vacation from your insides. And there’s the oh-so-christianese phrased ‘dry times’ where your trekkin along on the ‘straight and narrow’ road like whistling Dixie and suddenly you run right smack into an invisible wall of seeming silence from God.

My theory on my theory is that God knows exactly what we need at exactly each moment. Whether we are blatantly sinning or making silly mistakes or right on the path, he knows when we need to be held, disciplined, quieted, left to ourselves, etc for our spiritual growth. Again, I say this from my personal experiences.

So back to this whole ‘sorting through joy and simple foolishness’ thing. There’s this one thing that kept sneaking up on me in the last four months or so . . . I want to punch it, and myself, in the face - seriously. I would like to take it out into the middle of the square hang it by its neck and set it on fire. My period of hand-held grace ended long ago. No excuses now . . . it needs to be flogged and trashed, never to see the light of day again.

As I make (stumble, trip, run) my way forward into woman-hood it is my duty to shed the things that have gotten too old to deal with. I don’t need and don’t want to carry into my future unnecessary foolishness. This reminds me of my ‘Acne’ allegory, which I will share with you now (I am sure you are smart enough to dig out the spiritual implications without me having to do it for you):

Acne: it’s defiantly a part of being young but it’s not like anyone’s pining to carry that on with them into adulthood. You don’t like the zits, of course, but at first you’re not really sure what to do about it and they’re infrequent enough for you to ignore and go about your life. Unfortunately, after leaving them unattended they begin to multiply and their appearance becomes too frequent for comfort: you can’t take it anymore. You find yourself overwhelmed at the sight of red and yellow pubescent puss pockets on you face so you start poking and prodding, squeezing and pinching but you make it worse because you are no face physician. Finally, you realize that if you really, really want to rid your face off all that ick you’re gonna have to suck it up, spend the dough and get deep cleaning, clinically approved face wash and if it’s bad enough, outside help. Once you do that though; once you make that vital step – your face immediately starts to clear up and you as a person start to feel more confident that you will make it in life. You move on with your head held high, so thankful for Oil of Ole and its creator - no matter how much it cost you.

Sadly no one, including myself, will ever be exempt from making dumb decisions. I don’t like that part about humanity but I love God’s mercy, whatever form it takes in my life.