Daily Word of Grace # 95 (July 27, 2020)

In his moving and evocative 2007 book Love is a Mix Tape: Life and Loss, One Song at a Time Rob Sheffield writes about the tragic unexpected death of his wife Renee.  They had been married five years when she died of a pulmonary embolism.  Their mutual love of music had brought them together in the first place, and throughout their relationship they made mix tapes for one another—each cassette tape containing songs that resonated with them.  In the aftermath of Renee’s death Rob, in the midst of his unspeakable grief, received many acts of kindness as unexpected as her death: “People kept showing me unreasonable kindness, inexplicable kindness, indefensible kindness.  People were kind when they knew that nobody would ever notice, much less praise them for it.  People were even kind when they knew I wouldn’t appreciate it” (164-165).  There is a word for that type of kindness, a word for “unreasonable kindness, inexplicable kindness, indefensible kindness” that has nothing to do with being noticed or praised or appreciated: grace.  And grace is what God gives each and every one of us (“grace upon grace”—John 1:16) each and every day, regardless of how hard life gets, regardless of what song is playing on our mixtape.  And it is God’s grace, God’s unexpected kindness, that turns our hearts back to God (Romans 2:4).

Love and Prayers,

Dave