Be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful.” Luke 6:36
I heard her before I saw her. I was sitting in the backyard enjoying a beautiful Spring early afternoon and I could hear two things. First, there was a heavy, shuffling of someone’s feet. It is the sound when a person’s feet never quite leave the ground amplified by the heavy shoes on their feet. Second, there was a quiet mumbling coming from the same place. I got up for some reason and walked from the patio to our driveway and as I did, I glanced down the alley that runs next to our house. That is when I saw her.
She was wearing a worn-out flowery dress that hadn’t seen a washing machine in a very long time. The heavy shoes that I had heard were a pair of rubber boots that strangely were flowered like her dress. With each step, as I suspected, her feet barely left the ground. At first, I thought she might be physically challenged which caused her shuffling but then I noticed that she was staggering as her feet shuffled. It was obvious that she was under the influence of something—drunk or high or both.
I said hello to her, but she didn’t hear me or ignored me. It was one of those times when she was there physically but not mentally. About that time some of my tribe joined me in the driveway. My son-in-law recognized the woman and said the other day she had pulled a hatchet on him and my daughter while they were walking, and I guess that explained what happened next.
I mentioned how sad I felt for her, but I guess because of the hatchet deal he didn’t share my compassion. She struggled on past us to make it to the end of the alley. While attempting to cross the busy street in front of our house almost stepped in front of a car. We all sorta gasped and it was then that someone mumbled something along the line that it probably would have been better if the car had hit her. I gave the Jesus lecture about she was someone that God loved, and Jesus died for, but they weren’t buying it. Oh, not that they are a hard-hearted lot, but compassion for her had been fatally wounded by the story of an old rusty hatchet.
In this crazy story, I was wanting to judge them for judging her. The bottom line is they should have felt more compassion for her—hatchet or not and I should have felt more understanding for them because of the hatchet. You see, it really is easy to enter the courtroom of judgement in life, isn’t it? And it’s too easy to extend mercy to one while withholding from another. Perhaps it would be better to leave the judging to the one true Judge while extending mercy to everyone and anyone. After all, that is what He did and that is what He does. Until we have walked a while in someone else’s shoes, we probably will misread the story. When you find yourself in an alley or anywhere else and you are tempted to judge, just remember the One who extended mercy to you…the One who no matter what…always has this. Bro. Dewayne
Grits with Grace 