this is no longer my blog

This past weekend, being a fifth Sunday of the month, was our Youth Sunday. We had a guest preacher, and the youth were in charge of most everything else about the service. I only assisted at two of our three services with communion distribution. Other than that, I was a spectator and it was nice.
Now there are a group of people, several who belong to the group I sometimes affectionately refer to as the curmudgeons, who pay attention to the calendar and when the fifth Sunday of a month rolls around, they are conveniently not in church that Sunday. Tom is often a part of that group. On Palm Sunday, which wasn't a fifth Sunday, we had some youth add some visuals to the very long reading of the Passion narrative. Nothing else was different about the service, but it was enough to set Tom off and he made a few comments on his way out of church that day, and did not shake hands with the youth who participated. So I figured that Tom would not be present at the service this weekend.
But he was. And not only that, but on his way out he told the guest preacher (who is in seminary and a daughter of the congregation) that she did a great job, but then he proceeded to shake the hands of the youth and told each one, "Nice job." One of the youth was in line directly after me, and when Tom shook her hand and said "Nice job," I couldn't help it but I looked at him and my jaw dropped. She laughed at me and said, "You should have seen your face!" I was greatly astonished.
Grace abounds. Often coming from the places where we least suspect it, and from the places where we've stopped looking for it. That's the crazy thing about grace. The minute we think we've got it figured out, it pulls another trick out of its hat to show us just how clueless we are. I love grace.