You have to remember…
I have a dear friend, who is in her 80th year. She likes to give her opinion, and when she does, she often reminds me, “you have to remember that I’m old”.
This always makes me smile, but she isn’t joking. I think she remembers what it felt like to be a hurried 30-something with a busy schedule and young children, and she wants me to remember that she is in a very different place now.
So she tells me she hates the big new grocery store, and when I’m surprised she says, “Well, you have to remember that I’d old and can’t walk very far.” She tells me that I need to assert myself more and when I balk she reminds me, “You have to remember that I’m old, and had to fight for the women’s rights that seem so normal to you.”
It’s endearing and helpful, a way for us to see each other more clearly despite decades of difference in life experience, varying degrees of agreement politically and very different religious views.
She’s made me think that we all “have to remember”.
I have grace for my friend because I love her, and because she reminds me to do so. She reminds me that she isn’t just complaining, but that she has a reason to feel this way. I want to go through life seeing others with this lens, remembering that we all come from somewhere and it’s helpful to remember what makes us different also makes us beautiful.
My ego’s been knocked down a few pegs this week. I’ve had a couple of hard conversations and I’ve had to apologize for “not remembering”, sometimes in egregious ways. I wish I could sit here and reflect on all the ways I’ve done a good job of being present and aware and helpful, but instead I’m met with a list of my failures, parading before me all bedraggled, looking as lousy and pathetic as they are.
The other night I walked by the river alone and asked myself and my Maker what I should do. I feel bad about myself, help – that’s basically what I whined into the deepening twilight. Here’s the comfort I heard: you don’t have to perfect yourself, this is the point of Grace. You don’t have to get it right every time, you don’t have to respond the way you should. This is the hope of redemption – not that I am content to be gross but that I don’t have to flay myself open when I inevitably behave in a gross way, that I can accept that failure is reality and cling to love anyway.
You have to remember, everyone makes mistakes. You have to remember, life is not a competition. You have to remember, love is bigger than your failures.