Impulsive Acts Of Grace

Impulsive Acts of Grace

Remember those bumper stickers advocating random acts of kindness? I think the idea was that if we all participate, we might collectively achieve some great sea change of goodness. Just recently I’ve begun a new and very personal campaign. For want of a name, I’m calling it Impulsive Acts of Grace. (Unplanned, Strongly Prompted, Non-merit-based Showings of Odd and Unsolicited Favor is too long.) I have been offering these acts with very little forethought on my part. Otherwise, I might have nixed them all.

Why give a charm off my favorite necklace to a rebellious, defiant eighteen-year-old who’s running from goodness as fast as his skinny legs will carry him? Because, as I sealed up a letter to him, I felt a strong impulse to do so. Because its inscription, “Jer. 29:13,” seemed to speak his name. Will it matter in the long run? I don’t know. But it mattered then, so I did it.

It felt right, too, to push an elderly lady’s grocery cart back to the store after she’d slowly loaded her car, trying to hold the cart, her hatchback, and her balance all at once. “Would you like me to get that?” I asked her as I approached. “Yes, thank you,” she said. She looked startled. So was I. I don’t usually slow down for that sort of thing.

It was even less like me to offer up a whole ziplock bag of homemade cookies (which I’d baked for therapeutic purposes and put in my car to take to work) to a man at a stoplight with a sign that said “Homeless, hungry, please help.” But when a light stopped me not ten feet from him, I rolled down my window, leaned across the console, and asked if some chocolate chip cookies would be okay. I didn’t have to ask twice. “Bless you,” he said. And then the light changed.

Would five dollars have helped more? Maybe. But I didn’t have cash. I had cookies. And the fleeting impulse to hand them over. Will any of these impulsive acts of grace change the world? No. But maybe, if I keep on responding to that still, small voice, they will change me.

A woman came in with a beautiful alabaster jar of expensive perfume made from essence of nard. She broke open the jar and poured the perfume over his head.

Mark 14:3