Second chances

I love watching gymnastics but I find myself completely and annoyingly tensed up during the routines. It’s hard for me to accept that after all of that work, all those years of sacrificing to train for this one huge event, that dreams can be dropped like a bomb all because of one hand slipping off of a bar. Or one toe stepping over a line. Or one person doing 1/100ths of a point better than you. I know that's what it is all about, but sometimes my heartache for the losers is as strong as my excitement for the winners.

I’ve watched Cole experience the same anxiety as we have watched the Olympics. More than once, when someone has made a “devastating” mistake he has turned to me with a frantic look on his little face and said “Can’t she have another chance?”

But she can’t. That’s it. It’s over.

It makes me think of grace. What if God ran the our lives like the Olympics? What if we had one chance to get it right and then it was over? You know we deserve it. But that’s not the way he does it. He lets us keep trying and trying. As long as we are His and we are willing, he will give us chance after chance to get it right. If we slip, he picks us up and lets us try again. If we step over a line, same thing. And if someone does 1/100ths better than us, he couldn’t care less. He wants us to keep going until we get it. With him, it’s not about judgement. It’s about grace and mercy and second chances.

It’s kinda like the anti-Olympics.

And that is one Olympics I can actually qualify for.