It's already been paid for

For my birthday a few weeks ago, my sweet boyfriend Jayson bought me tickets to see the Alvin Ailey dance company perform.  I'd been wanting to see them for ages, having heard AMAZING things about their company, and I was super excited to go!

Except here's the thing - we're still long-distance.  Since he couldn't take me himself, he bought me a pair of tickets so that I could enjoy the show with a friend.  I invited a series of girlfriends, who successively canceled due to unexpected circumstances. I found out about the last cancellation minutes before the show started (she texted me the day before, but I never received it).

By that point, it was tool late to invite anyone else, so I headed to my seat, resigned to the fact that I would be seeing the show by myself.  I started feeling incredibly guilty, then panicking, then tearing up.  I could have confirmed the day before.  I could have invited my roommate.  I could have tried to talk one of my original guests out of canceling.  I could have, I should have....any number of things.  But I didn't, and now I was wasting my boyfriend's money.

And then it dawned on me - my fretting and self-induced guilt-tripping had ZERO effect on Jayson.  He had no idea that any of this was going through my head (because last he heard, I was going to see it with a friend).  I wasn't wasting his money - he had already paid for my tickets (which cost more than I would've spent on myself), because he considered me worth spending the money for.  I could either cry through the rest of the show or I could stop sniffling, sit back, and enjoy it.

As I thought about the situation, I realized that this is exactly what grace is -- a gift that's already been paid for.  I can choose to reject it outright, or I can accept it and fret about how I could've done something differently, or I can accept it an enjoy it for what it is.

Yet so often, I find myself fretting about how I didn't spend enough time on campus or how late my newsletter is, or how unprepared I was for a particular meeting. Fearing that somehow, because of all these things I did (or didn't do), I don't actually deserve the gift of eternal life that Christ gave me.  Never mind that the price - his sinless blood on a cross - has already been paid, and there's nothing I can do about it ex post facto!

I know these things in my head, but I still don't seem to understand them...I suspect that I will grapple with this mind-bogglingly beautiful thing called grace for the rest of my life.  May you also grow in your wonder of this five-letter word.