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Once upon a time, there was a boy who didn't like himself very much. It was not his fault. He was born with cerebral palsy. Cerebral palsy is something that happens to the brain. It means that you can think but sometimes can't walk, or even talk. This boy had a very bad case of cerebral palsy, and when he was still a little boy, some of the people entrusted to take care of him took advantage of him instead and did things to him that made him think that he was a very bad little boy, because only a bad little boy would have to live with the things he had to live with.
In fact, when the little boy grew up to be a teenager, he would get so mad at himself that he would hit himself, hard, with his own fists and tell his mother, on the computer he used for a mouth, that he didn't want to live anymore, for he was sure that God didn't like what was inside him any more than he did.
He had always loved Mister Rogers, though, and now, even when he was fourteen years old, he watched the Neighborhood whenever it was on, and the boy's mother sometimes thought that Mister Rogers was keeping her son alive. She and the boy lived together in a city in California, and although she wanted very much for her son to meet Mister Rogers, she knew that he was far too disabled to travel all the way to Pittsburgh, so she figured he would never meet his hero, until one day she learned through a special foundation designed to help children like her son that Mister Rogers was coming to meet her son. At first, the boy was made very nervous by the thought that Mister Rogers was visiting him. He was so nervous, in fact, that when Mister Rogers did visit, he got mad at himself and began hating himself and hitting himself, and his mother had to take him to another room and talk to him. Mister Rogers didn't leave, though. He wanted something from the boy, and Mister Rogers never leaves when he wants something from somebody. He just waited patiently, and when the boy came back, Mister Rogers talked to him, and then he made his request. He said, "I would like you to do something for me. Would you do something for me?" On his computer, the boy answered yes, of course, he would do anything for Mister Rogers, so then Mister Rogers said, "I would like you to pray for me. Will you pray for me?" And now the boy didn't know how to respond. He was thunderstruck. Thunderstruck means that you can't talk, because something has happened that's as sudden and as miraculous and maybe as scary as a bolt of lightning, and all you can do is listen to the rumble. The boy was thunderstruck because nobody had ever asked him for something like that, ever. The boy had always been prayed for. The boy had always been the object of prayer, and now he was being asked to pray for Mister Rogers, and although at first he didn't know if he could do it, he said he would, he said he'd try, and ever since then he keeps Mister Rogers in his prayers and doesn't talk about wanting to die anymore, because he figures Mister Rogers is close to God, and if Mister Rogers likes him, that must mean God likes him, too. The first time I read this story--a 1998 Esquire Magazine article, "Can you say, Hero," by Tom Junod--I was on an airplane, trying my best to hide my tears. (Apparently, there's no crying in First Class.) Looking back, it's interesting to me how afraid I was to just let the tears flow. No, I don't understand the magnitude of the young boy's pain, but I did recognize this: in all of us, the yearning is the same.
A need to know that we count. A need to know that we matter. A need to know that someone knows us, and sees us, and is willing to open their arms, wide no matter what.
Because here's the deal: It's not that I am afraid of love. I'm just afraid of not being loved back.
I don't know where you find Grace in your life. I do know we don't cut ourselves enough slack, and I do know that when Grace appears, it's best if we don't analyze it, but just... pause, and let it seep into the core of our being. The reality of true Grace is that it does not waiver or diminish. It does not depend upon our response, performance, attitude, faith or checkered past.
It just is.
Why? Because Grace heals not by taking shame away, but by removing the one thing our shame makes us fear the most: rejection.
In my experience, it is easier to talk about grace, than it is to embrace it.
Just as it is easier to talk about God, than to experience God.
You want certainty?
Okay. Here's what I know for certain:
We will not always learn from our mistakes.
We will check our phone messages even while on a silent retreat.
We will never fully understand the opposite sex, even if we compare them to planets.
The Chicago Cubs will never win a world series. (This should get some email.)
Dancing is always good for whatever ails us.
Regardless of our best intentions, we will hurt the people we love.
Regardless of our pain, spring will always give us irises.
And. It is not easy to fall into the open arms of love.
Even so... We will only know grace through the open arms of one another.
Afterward: "As for Mister Rogers himself... well, he doesn't look at the story in the same way that the boy did or that I did. In fact, when Mister Rogers first told me the story, I complimented him on being so smart--for knowing that asking the boy for his prayers would make the boy feel better about himself--and Mister Rogers responded by looking at me at first with puzzlement and then with surprise. "Oh, heavens no, Tom! I didn't ask him for his prayers for him; I asked for me. I asked him because I think that anyone who has gone through challenges like that must be very close to God. I asked him because I wanted his intercession." Tom Junod
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