I don’t remember how old I was but I think I was around 11 the summer I traveled 1,300 miles with my sister, her husband and their baby to visit my brother-in-law’s parents in Montana. The only inhabitants of an unincorporated town high in Glacier Park, they owned a small general store with a post office, a horse stable and a few cabins.
While there, I slept in an upstairs bedroom, above the store and post office. One morning, while others were getting ready for the day, I waited in the store below. As I meandered around the small area that contained food and other items visitors to Glacier Park might find useful, I noted some hairpins—bobby pins, we called them, back then. Impulsively, I grabbed a packet from the shelf and put it in my pocket. I’m sure they weren’t missed—at least nothing was said—and I took them home with me in my suitcase.
For a long time, perhaps several months, those bobby pins weighed heavily on my conscience and I frequently fought feelings of guilt and shame. Finally, unable to stand the self-condemnation any longer, I told my mother about my offense. At her suggestion, I sent a letter of confession, together with 50 cents for the hairpins, to my brother-in-law’s dad and went on with my life, putting the incident behind me. Looking back on it, I don’t remember if he responded to my confession.
However, when I learned some time later, that he would be passing through our area with my sister and her family, and stopping by our house for a visit, I was concerned. He was a cowboy type, who reminded me of Ben Cartwright on TV’s “Bonanza.” Nice but, from my childhood perspective, also burly and intimidating. What if he said something to me about the incident? What would I say in return? What if he made a joke about my thievery, humiliating me in front of the whole family? Once again, I began to experience anxiety and feelings of guilt over my sin.
The dreaded day of his arrival came, and I recall slowly descending the stairs from the upper story of our house, fear gripping my heart. I opened the door at the bottom of the stairway to see, standing in the entry, his larger-than-life frame and wanted to disappear, to be anywhere else. I needn’t have worried. Acknowledging my presence, he continued the conversation in progress and, throughout the entire visit, never said a thing about my crime. I was so relieved. He was giving me grace!
We often hear about prominent people who “fall from grace,” but most members of the secular media do not understand the theological definition of grace, which is unmerited favor. I did not deserve grace from this Montana “cowboy,” but he granted it to me, anyway. He’s in heaven now, but I will always remember the grace he showed me. As a young girl, I saw in this man the likeness of God who, when we confess our sin and ask for forgiveness, extends grace and mercy—even when we don’t deserve it—and forgets the transgression ever happened.
"I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions, for my own sake, and remembers your sins no more” (Isaiah 43:25).
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