Tag Archives: John 1:14

Truth and Grace

My wife has been a most extraordinary help to me through the last ten months of Leukemia (my whole life actually). It hasn’t been at all easy for her to take on new roles of caring for someone who is generally pretty independent or to deal with the uncertainties that continue to present themselves.

One of Marcia’s characteristics that has ministered to me throughout this ongoing experience is the way she tenderly speaks truth and grace to me. We all need to hear truth but we aren’t always receptive to it, even from our best friend. Perhaps you too have experienced:

Truth without grace seems harsh; grace without truth is cheap. Grace and truth together are a costly and yet free gift of great value. They are the essence of who Jesus is and who we are called to be, in Him..

Allow me to offer what may be silly yet practical examples of how grace and truth work together. My treatment medicines often give me bad breath, despite a concentrated effort to maintain excellent oral care (an essential routine for cancer patients). So if Marcia senses this when we are out in public, instead of just telling me the truth, she demonstrates this with the gentle grace of offering me a mint. In my steroid-induced ‘manic’ moments when I talk too fast or too much (even more than normal :-)) she will often place her gentle hand on my shoulder to remind me, without a word, to slow down. That same signal reassures me when the meds increase my involuntary muscular tics and when I get so excited visiting with people that my breathing becomes too labored. Her message of truth provides needed awareness. Her quiet actions of grace allow me to receive and apply that message in a beneficial way.

This is the purpose of the Go Light Your World ministry: to help others discover God’s best for them by letting His light shine truth and grace into their lives. We want to encourage one another, myself included, to dig deeper, to press on, to BE the “light of the world” that Jesus calls us to be in our daily interactions with others.

Like learning to love and live well, it is a life long process and we don’t always get it right. But what great hope comes with each new day, a new beginning, an opportunity for each of us to renew our pledge to experience and share the peace and joy that is ushered in by truth and grace!

“And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” John 1:14