Fill in the Blank Grace
I am a minute maximizer. I make my husband dizzy with the amount of things I can fit into my minutes. Yesterday was one of those days where 49 extra, unplanned for things happened at once... while this was happening....
Just a little picnic lunch.
But somehow... someway... I had surprising opportunities to encourage and counsel people. New vision and purpose clicked into place. And all the extra things got done. I even had the baby down for a nap and a dress on before heading off to Tuesday’s Help Club for Moms. I had a fleeting thought as I lugged my fruit bowl and candles up the stairs in the meeting venue, “What did I do with my time before I had a baby? Surely there was extra time.”
Up until that one little thought, I perpetually felt one step behind. It’s like panic-running on the back edge of the treadmill, trying not to fall off rather than running to get a good workout. (I would imagine someone who actually uses treadmills would get that feeling.) I want to do things with excellence. I want to be ultra-prepared for Help Clubs to honor God and the women involved in them. I want to have quality, face-to-face time with all my boys, disciple, teach and do all the things all the time.
I want more minutes. But I don’t actually need them.
On the way to Help Club yesterday, there were many things that hadn’t been done but many more that had. I realized that I have a very special “baby grace” on me right now - the ability to raise this dreamboy and keep the household running, while keeping my hair clean, legs shaved, and building a new ministry with huge vision... with a dress on! It’s a special dose of grace from God because I need it with this sweet, little baby and without family around to help us.
He gives us the grace we need when we need it. It’s not a one-size-fits all grace.
That’s my theory, at least. Everybody needs grace, but we don’t all need the same grace. It’s a fill in the blank grace. Health crisis, single parent, unemployment, whatever your current flavor of hardship, there’s help available. My theory developed in the rural townships of South Africa, and it was confirmed when I met Chris Ladd and my life fell apart (in all the right ways).
From 2010 - 2016, I spent my days working with the most beautiful and impoverished faces of South Africa. Sickness, malnourishment and abandonment were rampant. An older generation had been wiped out by HIV, leaving communities full of moms who hadn’t been mommed and, therefore, didn’t know how to mom. There were no dads because they didn’t understand they had a valuable role to play. Children would show up at our feeding programs with empty stomachs, open wounds and festering sores. They should not have been ok. Fungal infections were pervasive. I sent pictures to doctor friends in US asking how to help, and nobody knew how to advise me. So I bought a dropper bottle of tea tree oil and a tub of vaseline. I’d let drops of tea tree oil fall onto the fungus. I’d treat wounds and cover them with Vaseline to keep anything else from getting in. Guys... Vaseline and tea tree oil should not do the trick for what we were dealing with. But it worked. They got better. There was a necessary grace on those babies. Africa’s grace.
And then there was the handsome Mr. Ladd who first knew me as a single mom. Lifa and I had a great system in place, and we were truly thriving as a family of two. When Chris came on the scene, it all fell apart. Suddenly I realized that, at 7-years old, Lifa needed to start wearing deodorant and stop running around in his underwear. Those were not decisions I had space for as a single parent. With two of us, we had so much more capacity as parents. I realized, as our family of two became three, that we had been living under a special grace as a single-parent family. God had sustained me with extra capacity, energy and leadership that I no longer had as a married woman. It’s all part of His perfect design. (There is barely a difference in these two parenting photos.)
When the Ladd Family move to Cape Town, our budget got much tighter. One month we decided to go bare bones with our budget - living on beans, rice, eggs and oats and spending on absolutely nothing extra. But, you see, I was almost out of makeup. I’d been scraping mascara and foundation from the bottom of the tubes for months already. So I asked God to make it last until we had the resources to buy more. It lasted for another four months! Mascara grace. (The same thing has happened three times since then!)
Mascara grace might be a silly example. But maybe it’s not. Maybe today is a good day to remember that no matter how big or small - disease and poverty or a tube of makeup - God sees. And, even more importantly, He cares. He sent His Son to die so we could access full grace, and it’s available as much as we need whenever we need. Maybe it’s single-parenting, a bad work environment, or a relationship or financial crisis. Maybe it’s loss or a new life season. Maybe things just aren’t going how you thought they would.
Your necessary flavor of grace is available. You may already be walking in it and haven’t even realized it. Those little ones in the township didn’t have all their needs met, and they sure didn’t know they shouldn’t be walking and talking with the wounds they were carrying. They didn’t know it, but they were still being so lovingly beheld in Africa’s grace. That must mean there’s a great plan for their lives. I didn’t know I was wearing a single-mom cape and flying through some impossible times until I told the stories later of what we’d come through.
Sometimes we only see grace in hindsight, but it’s always there. I know that because Jesus left heaven to come to conquer every unconquerable in this world and give you the grace you need for today. Look around today, and you’ll probably find that you’re walking in the exact kind of grace you need for today.