First off, a little background with a post I had on Xanga last summer. I'd link to it but I'm pretty sure it doesn't exist anywhere else on the blagosphere. Its one of the most honest and poignant things I had written last year. Apologies for the formatting notation, but that's how Xanga gave it to me when it got rid of all my stuff.
'Here at the ACMS conference, I just listened to a quick talk by Francis Su recapping the talk he gave at the joint meetings in honor of his Haimo teaching award and some of the reaction that he had received from it. He essentially took the opportunity to talk about grace and how it affects his teaching and interaction with students.<br><br>I don't want to talk about it in terms of relating to my students, though. I want to talk about grace, pride, myself and math. I've always struggled with true grace. I know that to earn your salvation, you must be perfect and there was never any chance of that. I also know that Christ's grace is sufficient for me and thus, all of my sins have been covered, all my failures are not counted against me and that I've been given the best possible gift anyone could ever receive. That said, as a child, and more specifically, as a pastor's child, I always did assume that I was better than everyone else because I didn't sin in all the ways other kids did. I found excuses for my sins and assumed that since I sinned less, that that had to count for something and in some way, I was making myself at least somewhat justified. I patently knew that was a load of crap in my brain, but I didn't believe it with my heart. This has really manifested itself with math as well. I was shown amazing grace by God and would not be where I am now without His help. The first qual I passed was Algebra and I was shocked that I passed it. I passed my comp on my first go through, despite doing a piss poor job of answering the open questions at the end. Looking back, I can see the great hand of God's grace in these things, but immediately after they had happened, I gladly took the success, but took it with wounded pride. I wanted to pass them having rocked them. I wanted people to know that I had done this all on my own and that I was truly worthy of being a mathematician. Yeah, yeah, all the glory to God all that, but this was a time to celebrate me. My pride took a great blessing and somehow turned it into a burden. I'd love to say that I've dealt with this and that I've moved on, but my pride is a monster. I guarantee you that there are still times that I scornfully look down on the grace that God gives me immediately after I was praying for it. How do I conquer this? I don't know. It's the same reason I suck at forgiveness. It all has those roots in where I think I've earned more than others, remaining painfully oblivious of just how wretched a person I am.'
This came up again during a much needed talk last night. I freely admit I struggle with pride and how that relates to forgiveness and grace. There is hypocrisy there as I have certain sins that I make bigger than others but have my own sins that I casually sweep under the rug. With other people, its almost as if I decide, "hey, you struggle with the same sins I do, so everything's cool", but if you dare struggle with something else, then I need to judge you. There's more to it than that. With some of those close to me, I demand more from them than I'm willing to give and that's simply unfair to ask.
I need to really search my heart and just turn it over to God and let Him change this so I'm convicted of my own sins and yet still fully amenable to not only accepting grace but granting it to others. I prayed one of the prayers that scared me last night. "Dear Lord, please show me the true nature of my heart. Show me all the ugliness that exists there and show me how much I truly need your grace and forgiveness." I had some unusual dreams that may have spoken the answer metaphorically (I was a twisted/broken dog consistently running into a wall), but the answer is more likely that God just told me no because I'm probably not ready to see all that lies within myself. I don't know where this heads. All I can do is dig into my Bible further and make sure I'm constantly praying and communicating with God to see where I am and what, if anything, I need to do or if its just best to step aside and let him transform me.
The title of this post could really be replaced by any of Thrice's lyrics from the album The Artist in the Ambulance, but instead I'll leave you with these from The Abolition of Man,
"Wake up everyone! It's not too late
To save the remnants of our hearts,
So stop giving up our last shot at love,
Our only chance to find the meaning of
The beat beneath the blood."
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