Freeing Grace

My friend Melissa spent the first half of her life in an attitude of adjustment:  born with severely clubbed feet and legs, she learned to crawl in hip-to-toe plaster casts; she learned to walk in clunky orthopedic shoes—shoes that were attached to one another at the heel with a wide metal bar.  Then she graduated to squeaky metal and leather leg braces.

Melissa hated those leg braces, casts and horrible shoes.  She hated not being like the other kids. She hated the questions, the stares, the looks of sympathy.  She simply hated.  Her parents were determined that the doctor’s rather pitiful prognosis would be proven wrong.  Melissa WILL walk. Melissa WILL run!  Melissa doesn’t remember a time, waking or sleeping, during the first 16 years of her life that her legs were not twisted, strapped or plastered into what the surgeons called “normal.”  Except for one time . . .

It was a nice night, quiet, peaceful.  She was sitting in the front seat of her parents’ car, her four-year-old eyes staring out into the inky blackness as her mother drove along a never-ending bridge.  She and her mother had just finished checking the lobster traps.  She felt the car slow, and looked over at her mother as she pulled the car over to the side.

“Take off your braces, Melissa.”

She was sure it was the stunned look on her own face that brought the smile to her mother’s.  Melissa was positive that her mom had lost her mind.  Her braces NEVER left her legs!

Silently, she watched as her mother removed her own sneakers and socks . . . then dumbfounded Melissa watched as she bent over to unstrap the leather buckles of her braces.  Excited now, she stripped off her own socks and hopped out of the car . . . anticipating . . .she didn’t know . . . anything that permitted brace removal had to be good!

Outside the car, the dark came to greet them, surround them, welcome them.  Hand in hand, they walked through that black night, down unseen steps to the black water.  Seeing—nothing.  Smelling—the salty odor of fish and the fishermen who had long since gone home for the evening.  Feeling—the warmth of her mother’s hand, and the rough wood stairs beneath her bare feet.  Standing on the last dry stair, she could hear the water swirling, slapping gently at the worn wooden dock.

“Let’s sit down, Melissa.  Let’s put our feet in the water.”

“Won’t a crab bite my toes, Mommy?”

A smile . . .

“No, Lissie, crabs like to live on the bottom of the ocean.  We’ll put our feet right here on top . . . see, just like this.”

She hiked up her gown and sat down beside her mother, dangling her toes . . . then her feet in the invisible water.  Warmth . . . calm, gentle, moving warmth.  They sat in this warmth, mother and child.  Four feet in the water.  Two strong and straight, two strong and crooked.

Eyes wide against the darkness, Melissa knew God.  She knew God was with her.  God was in the water that soothed her hurting, crooked feet.

God was in the sky that enveloped her brokenness with wholeness.

God was in the hand of her mother who led her to  a rare moment of freedom.

She didn’t know God’s name . . . but she knew God.

She knew the bigness of God . . . the safety of God.

She knew grace.  Grace that allowed a reprieve from bound legs and feet.

Grace transformed that dock into an altar . . . grace that revealed God’s presence to a small, bent child.  She wanted to remain on that dock forever, smiling into the hugeness of God’s love.  She wanted to sing.  She wanted to have a PARTY!  She wanted to CELEBRATE!  It was a sacred moment, even to a four-year-old.

Such is God’s grace.  It comes, as Carl Jung said once upon a time, bidden or unbidden.  How beautiful.  And how comforting.

I bet you have had sacred moments like that too.  Today’s the day to celebrate them.  And I thank Melissa for sharing this story with me many years ago.  It still brings me great joy.

Grace and joy,

Julie