Grace Poured Out

A couple of weeks ago I went to the DMV with my husband. He was getting his driver’s license renewed and I thought he could use some company. When his number was called, he went to the back of the room and I continued sitting in the main waiting area, watching the people around me. That’s when I noticed a man and woman standing nearby. They stood out because they looked so cheerful. I don’t know if you’ve ever observed people at the DMV before, but cheerful isn’t the usual look. People typically look vacant or mildly unhappy, maybe because they’ve been at the DMV longer than they’d like and they didn’t want to be there in the first place.

This cheerful man and woman were speaking to a silent, grumpy looking lady behind a long, high counter. They asked how her day was going and thanked her for the work she was doing. I was surprised to see that the lady behind the counter didn’t react at all, either with words or expression. She just took the papers they handed her and started typing on her computer. I looked at the couple to see how they would respond to being so rudely ignored. They looked just as friendly as before.

It went on like that for a while with them being genuinely friendly and her being genuinely unfriendly until finally she stapled some papers together and handed them to the man and woman without looking at them. They both thanked her and wished her a good rest of the day while she pretended not to have heard them. As they walked out I got a good look at their faces. They weren’t raising their eyebrows and giving each other meaningful glances or laughing at the ridiculousness of that interaction. Their countenances simply looked clear and bright.

Although I can’t know for sure, I got the feeling those people cared about the lady behind the counter and I wondered if they prayed for her after they left. It made me think about what graciousness looks like. Because the thing is, they didn’t know anything about the lady behind the counter and neither did I. She may have been dealing with incredibly hard things in her life. Despair might have been weighing her down so much that she had no words or smiles left in her at that moment. Or she might have just been a person who enjoys being rude, but even that in itself would be something pitiable. I loved that the couple did not absorb the lady’s rudeness and then act rudely back to her in return. It’s what I’d expected when I first observed the lady behaving so badly. Wouldn’t that have been the most natural reaction in the world?

Recently I reread Sir Gibbie, by George MacDonald. I was struck by this quote: “Jesus is the one rock where evil finds no echo.” The friendly couple’s reaction was so otherworldly, it reminded me of Jesus. I do not always react like that, do you? But how wonderful that God pours His grace on us. And as we dwell on that, surely we will be more likely to pour grace on one another.

Blessings to you today as you experience God’s grace poured out on you.

~Amy