I have always struggled to really understand what grace really means.  It’s one of those words often heard in church, but seldom really understood. Over the past couple of days I have been reading Philip Yancey’s "What’s so amazing about grace?" and, slowly but surely, the truth has dawned on me that I don’t know the first thing about grace.

If you take a look at the parable of the prodigal son, I am the brother who stays at home and questions why the child, who had run off and had been so bad, gets the special attention.

 This morning, I woke up to my husband telling me: “Angel is back”.  Angel is our dog.  Actually, she’s somebody else’s dog who happens to have stayed with us for about nine years.  She’s ugly, neurotic, and even after years of attention and love, still distrusts us and shies away from us.  This is the result of neglect and abuse inflicted on her, before we “ended up” with her. Last week, during a thunderstorm while we were away, she managed to run from our yard and just went missing.  After about a week of scouring the neighbourhood, we accepted that she was dead.  Seeing her there this morning, all quivering, battered and bruised, I suddenly realised how much we (cats included) love her, even though she has so many failings as a dog.

 I thought back to what I have so often read without truly understanding in Luke 15:32, “But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.”

 I think that God must be a million times more excited than I was, when one of us returns after falling away.  God gets the angels together and they have a super celebration when somebody who has always been loved unconditionally, and has rejected that love, gets so broken and hungry and scared, that they go back home in desperation, and find not judgment but unconditional, unending love.

 My prayer is that the Lord allows me to accept and love those whom the Lord loves unconditionally, no matter who or what they are.

 God bless

Gert