The Best and Worst Experience of My Life - episode 181
Your own life experiences really color your perspective. They are a custom made kaleidoscope to how you see things, the choices you make. During our conversation, Sara Marsh shared that we view others through our own lens. Everyone has a story. We may assign a particular storyline to them to fill in the gaps based on us, not necessarily them - human nature and all that. Sara’s point is maybe it’s better not to, but to see things from their perspective, not our own.
This is especially true when it comes to her son. She calls parenting the best and worst experience of her life, and anyone who has children gets the truth of the high highs and the low lows. Throughout their lives together, Sara’s son inspires her to be in the present moment because that’s where he is. Through being a brave, kind and funny kid from the system she sees he is a survivor, and she is all too happy to give him the best start to life possible.
Passionate. Empathetic. Responsible.
— Sara Marsh
Retire this Phrase
Thoughts from The Best and Worst Experience of my Life
Sara talked about putting herself in another person’s shoes and in this way we feel, and can have, more compassion for that individual. (As an aside this should extend to ourselves as the definition for compassion is tender feeling. I like that.) I certainly agree with Sara, who wouldn’t?
Somehow it got me thinking about the expression, There but for the grace of God go I. It’s one we hear when we feel bad for someone and the situation they find themselves in. I may have actually said it myself once or twice. In looking up its origin it is attributed to John Bradford who in 1553 uttered it while watching criminals being led to their execution. The other day it hit me as I let this phrase wash over me; this is all wrong! On some level it lifts the one saying it, up, while putting the one being pitied, down. And it also makes it seem like the one being pitied doesn’t get God’s grace because if he did receive it, he wouldn’t be in that predicament.
I googled the phrase to see if it had any biblical roots. It does not. Sure grace is all over the place but never in a one-over, one-under sort of way. We have no idea why person X is the way they are, in that situation, or how their own gift of choice factored into the whole equation. In my mind there are three reasons (super simplified for sure) people turn out the way they do: they weren’t well loved, they have an innate deficit through no fault of their own, and/or they have not exercised their free-will to their benefit. And that could certainly be influenced heavily by reasons one and two.
I am looking at this face-value. I haven’t factored God in, and for me, he is all over the place. I believe he wants to, and does, pour out his grace to one and all. What I can’t explain is why it doesn’t always look that way, or feel that way. That is where the trust comes in, and the faith. Since we have free will I believe he honors that and won’t override it. He is a gentleman after all. We will experience the side effects of our choices, both good and bad. Grace is available but what if we can’t receive it for one reason or another? There’s that.
What I would like to do is to retire the phrase, There but for the grace of God go I. I appreciate the sentiment Bradford felt at that moment towards his fellow man that found themselves in harsh situations, preparing to die for reasons we don’t know or whose lives we won’t understand. I believe grace was available for them too - they just somehow missed it and for that I have tender feelings.
God gave you free will as a gift. Once received it’s yours…
— RCN
