A Kiss for Each

2 Corinthians 12:8-9a Three different times I begged the Lord to take it away. Each time he said, "My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness."

 In his remarkable book The Haunt of Grace, Ted Loder gives insight into a powerful scene (summarized here) from Mortal Lessons by Richard Selzer, a gifted writer and a gifted surgeon.

 A young woman lies in a hospital, postoperative, her mouth twisted in palsy—a tiny facial nerve had been severed. Her husband holds her hand in generous love.

 “Will my mouth always be like this?” she asks.

 “Yes, a nerve was cut,” he says. She nods and is silent. But the young man smiles and continues, “I like it. It’s kind of cute.” Unmindful, he bends to kiss her crooked mouth. He twists his own lips to accommodate to hers, to show her that their kiss still works.

 All of us bear burdens; carry wounds, which mark our lives. So don’t we wonder if we will always be this way? Being human, the answer is “Yes.” Because something cut us some way, and not just once. We all know heartbreak.

 But the incredible thing isn’t just that our lives are twisted by wounds of one kind or another. The wonder is that there are those in our lives who kiss us anyway. It’s a human kiss, but somehow more than that. Eternally more!

 The compassion shown through lots of people—family, friends, even those we think of as enemies—is generated by the grace of God. God keeps twisting his lips to kiss our twisted lives so our lives not only still work . . . but still work gracefully.

 Grace, given differently in each life, gives us the pitch on which to start singing our life song. It gives us a glimpse of who God is. It’s enough. More than enough.

 Let your Lifesong be an answer to the world in need. And sing it to the God who makes it all possible. Hallelujah.