On Grace.

Every now and then, life doesn't quite go according to plan. 

Well, side note, if you're me, then things not going to plan is a pretty standard part of the plan, but hear me out. 

Sometimes, it's the little things that go awry in the plan. Like an emergency run to CVS for flashcards, or losing your pen. Sometimes, it's the suicide of a laptop and a tire in the midst of paper season and round two of midterms in the middle of recovering for the GRE. And there's some other stuff. 

Not that that's my week or anything.

But every now and then, it isn't the life of the philistine that interrupts the plan, but rather the people who frame the plan. Don't get me wrong, there are good things that can come from the surprises. They sweep you off your feet and provide a new alternative with a potentially happy ending.

However, there are the bad moments. The moments when the world drops out beneath you and the knife goes deep. The days pass and the knife twists deeper. And at this point comes the juncture in which a decision must be made.

Do you stay, or do you go?
Do you take a chance, or run in fear?
Do you follow your head, or your heart??

I think the common thing to do is to run. A heart breaks, and the feet fervently begin to create an itinerant existence. 

Then I go back to my proclivity for quotes. There's this guy named Andy Stanley, and he said "If you deserve it, it isn't grace." 

No one deserves forgiveness. No one is guaranteed a second or a third or any amount of chances. On the same plane, no one deserves to be hurt. 

It's a weird paradox deciding whether to stay or go, especially considering no one deserves either to be hurt or to be forgiven. At the end of the day, it all comes back to grace. 

If it were you, would you want someone to lend you grace and give you a second church? 
If it were you, would you trust someone to change and to try something new? 
If it were you, would you offer some grace? 

If it were you, would you let someone in?

"The people put in your life are not always the people you want, but they're the people you need. To hurt you, to love you, to teach you, to break you, to turn you into the person you're supposed to be."

Pardon me, for my peregrinate feet are wizened, and my grace overflows. 
Pardon me, for chances seem infinite and choices polysemous. 
Pardon me, but could you hold the door?