Where Do You Need Grace?

Where Do You Need Grace?

Be kind to each other, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God through Christ has forgiven you.

Ephesians 4:32

The 2003 film open range, directed by Kevin Costner (who also stars in the movie), is not only an old-fashioned Western. It is also a story about second chances. Kevin Costner’s character comes to town seeking revenge for the killings of his friends:

His plans for bloodshed, however, reawaken memories of the Civil War. As an assassin, he had killed hundreds, and as the war grew long, he stopped discriminating between soldiers and civilians, between men, women, and children. He had killed them all.

But when Charley meets Sue Barlow, played by Annette Bening, Charley sees the possibility of a different life for himself—a life filled with love, home, and family. Until he met Sue, Charley considered such a life out of reach for a man with his murderous past. Yet, Sue’s love calls him to that different life.

Charley’s violent side re-emerges in a shootout in which he is wounded. He resolves to leave Sue and his dreams of a changed life. As Charley prepares to leave, Sue tells of her patient love for him, despite his past.

In a dusty, shot-up saloon, Sue tells him, “I don’t have the answers, Charley, but I know that people get confused in this life about what they want, and what they’ve done, and what they think they should have done because of it. Everything they think they are or did takes hold so hard that it won’t let them see what they can be.”

She continues, “I’ve got a big idea about us, Charley . . . and I’m not going to wait forever, but I am going to wait. And when you’re far away, I want you to think about that . . . and come back to me.”^a

And he does.

Love, infused with patience, will always pass the test of time. Few acts are more grace-full than waiting on and loving a husband or wife who is still in process. And aren’t we all? Each and every one of us is in need of patient grace from our spouse.

And so instead of asking where are you giving grace to your spouse, the more poignant question is where do you need grace from your partner today? Once you can begin to answer this question, you are more likely to receive grace. Humility engenders grace and cultivates patient love. Can you talk about this concept with each other?

Here’s a tip that has helped us when pride keeps us from offering patient and merciful love to each other. Simply take that behavior, that trait, that bad habit, that thing that irritates you or angers you and say, “There but for the grace of God go I.”

Grace is given not because we have done good works but in order that we may have power to do them.

—St. Augustine

^a 144