Grace Spottings, Take 2 July 17, 2012

Today I’d like to share a few grace spottings I’ve come across lately. Enjoy!

Grace Spotting #1: Redeeming Love

This book by Francine Rivers is a retelling of the story of Hosea and Gomer, set in California during the gold rush of the 1850s. Not only is it a romantic story of boy meets girl/boy loses girl/boy wins girl back, but it will also stun you with its portrayal of the kind of pursuing love God has for you.

Grace Spotting #2: Women at Risk International

This organization is dedicated to providing safety, dignity, life skills, and job opportunities for women and children around the world who have been rescued from various kinds of abuse, including human trafficking and sexual slavery. My friends Michael and Kay Killar and their three children serve women and girls trapped in such situations in Thailand, and there they show God’s redemption in a tangible way.

Grace Spotting #3: Corrie ten Boom

If anyone ever had a right to withhold forgiveness, it would have been Corrie ten Boom. She was sent to a German concentration camp for hiding Jews during World War II, and she suffered unspeakable horrors there, including the death of her father and beloved sister. After the war she devoted her life to traveling and speaking on God’s faithfulness and grace. At one of these speaking engagements, she came face-to-face with a guard who had inflicted on her some of the most brutal torture at the camp. Would she run away, like Jonah did, or would she live out the message of grace she preached? Watch this compelling interview for her firsthand account.

My Own Scarlet Letter April 23, 2012

Don’t tell my high school literature teacher, but I’ve always thought Nathaniel Hawthorne was a little over the top when it came to symbolism. Come on, Nate, a bright red letter A over Hester’s heart? Did we really need the literary two-by-four?

But then, several years ago, I found myself in a well-to-do church in Bangkok, receiving scathing glares for being in the company of a couple of Hester Prynnes, and I felt the sting of the scarlet letter in a more personal way. Suddenly the big red A no longer seemed excessive.

After being on the streets of Thailand’s red-light district for a week as part of a short-term trip, our group had befriended several women who were trapped in the sex industry there. We invited Gun and Kim to attend a local church with us, and to my surprise, they agreed to meet us there on Sunday.

As a group of Westerners, we would have stood out like the proverbial bull in the china shop anyway. (As hard as we tried to keep our voices down, we couldn’t shake the “loud American” stereotype.) But when we showed up with several women from the streets, all eyes in the sanctuary turned conspicuously on us. I’m no expert on Thai etiquette, but I could tell immediately that our friends weren’t quite dressed in what the congregation would consider “Sunday’s best.”

As we got looks ranging from disgust to pity to judgment, I found myself experiencing conflicting emotions: first, a sense of indignation—an almost maternal protectiveness for these women I’d grown to love. Women who desperately needed love, acceptance, grace. But almost as quickly, to my shame, I felt a wave of defensiveness wash over me. I’m not one of them! I wanted to explain. I’m a good Christian, just like you!

I imagine the prostitute Rahab must have felt marked too when the Israelite spies were in her neighborhood, scouting out potential property for the Promised Land. She may not have had a literal letter on her clothing, but no doubt everyone knew who she was and felt no qualms about condemning her.

But here’s where Scripture surprises me. Although Rahab may have had the sketchiest reputation in town, she and her family were the only ones to be saved when the Israelite army besieged the city. The sign she was given—the mark to indicate to the soldiers that they should spare her home—was a red cord.

Here were her instructions:
You must leave this scarlet rope hanging from the window through which you let us down. And all your family members—your father, mother, brothers, and all your relatives—must be here inside the house.

—Joshua 2:18

In the span of a day, Rahab’s life was turned inside out. She went from bearing a symbol of shame to being marked with the red symbol of salvation. And that scarlet thread didn’t just spare her own family: this former prostitute was woven into the lineage of David and eventually the Messiah himself (Matthew 1:5).

Somewhere about halfway through the church service, as my mind wandered amid a sea of unfamiliar words, it hit me: I am one of “them.” I am a sinner, with a glaring red S over my heart. And I am in desperate need of grace.

There is good news for Gun and Kim, and there is good news for me. We no longer have to be defined by the scarlet mark of our sin. Because of Christ, we can hang the scarlet cord of salvation out our window, and we, too, will be saved.

I’ve taken the challenge of reading the Bible chronologically this year and tracing the thread of grace through it. These musings are prompted by my reading. I’d love to have you join me: One Year Bible reading plan.

Grace on the Streets of Bangkok March 20, 2012

Jubilee. The word itself sounds like a party on the tongue.

This celebration is spelled out in the book of Leviticus: once the Israelites entered the Promised Land, every fifty years all debts would be forgiven, all slaves would be released, and there would be “freedom throughout the land for all who live there” (Leviticus 25:10). That year would be set apart as holy, and no work was to be done on the land for an entire year.

I can just imagine servants checking days off on a calendar, longing for the year of Jubilee, when their time of captivity would finally be over. Since the Jubilee came just twice in a century, most people probably experienced only one in a lifetime. Maybe the younger generation heard rumblings about the previous celebration and looked forward to the next one with great anticipation, half wondering if it was too good to be true.

I don’t know what it’s like to be a slave desperately longing for freedom. But I once got a glimpse of something similar through the eyes of a young woman on the streets of Bangkok.

I was on a short-term trip to Thailand, working with an organization that helps free women from the sex industry in Bangkok’s red-light district. Our group’s ultimate goal was to connect women to the ministry and let them know another way of life was available to them.

We did that by buying women out for the night so they wouldn’t have to work. For the equivalent of $20 in US currency, the woman (or in most cases, young girl) would be free to go home and just be a human being, with no pressure to belong to another person for the evening.

I’ll never forget the look on Buk’s face when our group bought her out the first night we were there. She kept trying to figure out what the catch was, what our hidden agenda was. Surely this was too good to be true. But when we finally got through to her that we’d paid her bar fee simply because we wanted to show her God’s love—because we, too, had been set free, redeemed—her smile was so bright it dimmed the garish neon lights of the strip.

I wouldn’t have been able to put it into words then, but I know now what I was seeing. Buk’s face told her own tale of Jubilee, if only for one night.

I don’t know where Buk is today, but I pray that one day she will experience permanent Jubilee—the eternal freedom we can experience knowing that Jesus paid the fee—for all of us.

I’ve taken the challenge of reading the Bible chronologically this year and tracing the thread of grace through it. These musings are prompted by my reading. I’d love to have you join me: One Year Bible reading plan.