What I Wish I Knew About Grace

My father was an extremist. You could even say he was a religious zealot. He was that way since childhood, and he was proud of it too.

You see, my dad grew up a Muslim in the core northern part of Nigeria. Through perhaps exposure to practices around him, encouragement of his parents towards upholding the virtues of Islam, and influence from peers and society, he grew up seeing himself as the embodiment of all things righteous, a true sentient of religious doctrine and laws. It was apparent in all he did too. Such was his passion for his practiced religion, that he believed no one who held a different belief should breathe. His devotion was absolute; his religion demanded it and so he embodied it.

Now, born into an upper-middle income family, he was availed with some privileges growing up. One of which was going to a regular school that taught “western” education. In those days of his boyhood, western education was still viewed with suspicion and so not many people were willing to enroll their kids. He was lucky to be given that chance to. Being a child born into an “okay” income family, he was afforded a domestic staff as well, whose duty amongst others, was to walk him to school and back, every day. This domestic staff’s name was Nathan. You are probably wondering how a man with such a name, a Christian name at that, wound up working for a staunch Muslim family, in the core Northern part of Nigeria. The answer to that is not complicated at all. Back in those days, the 1970’s Nigeria was less fragmented and the Northern part especially, was more tolerant of others. At least, that was what my father told me. In my time I have seen such a sharp distinction from the stories of yesteryears, to what is reality nowadays.

However, I digress.

Nathan was so devoted to his ward, so much so that, even as a child, my father could look back and say with conviction that Nathan was one of those people that truly, really loved him. He would turn up on time, take an interest in what my dad’s day at school looked like, and just really talk to him about whatever lousy thing he wanted to talk about. This was the case until my dad began to take an interest in Nathan and why he practiced a different religion from everyone else he knew.

They would go on to talk about how Nathan was an infidel and how if given the chance, he (my dad) would kill him. Perhaps these conversations were had over a period of time, I cannot say. However, the conversations did come to a head one particular day, on their way back home when my dad made an outburst about how Nathan didn’t deserve to live, as his continued existence was heretic, and how he wished he could just cut him open. On that day, Nathan listened without interruption and only spoke up when my dad had finished venting. He asked simply if my dad really meant any of it, if he really did want to cut him open. When my dad responded in the affirmative, Nathan quietly but simply, produced a razor blade from his personal effects, and handed it to my dad. He then pulled up the sleeves of his left arm and offered it to my dad.

There were no words necessary in that moment. Each person knew what they were about, and true to my father’s words, he did collect the blade, and he went on to stick that blade in Nathan’s lower arm, just below the elbow in the fleshy bit leading down to the wrist. When he felt he had dug in enough, he then pulled that blade down just short of the wrist.

He told me that when he looked up, he saw Nathan wince in pain, and a few tears had begun to escape his eyes. It was then that panic set in on my dad and he looked at this fresh wound he had just inflicted and saw the cut first go white, then a little pinkish and then a sudden rush of blood. I guess nothing really prepares a 12-year-old boy for a sight like that. I guess these things are usually fun for as long as they remain theoretical. Listening to him narrate that story the many times he did, gave me the mental picture of a boy whose hatred was taught and yet in his mind, was justified. That anger or hate, whichever it was, potent though it was, gave way to fear and regret the moment flesh was undressed to expose that bright red, squishy liquid it had been harboring. When that realization hit, my dad in his panic begun crying. He was going to run, cry to his father and tell him what horrible thing he had just done, when Nathan held him back and put a hand over his mouth to quieten him. He went on to plead with my dad to keep quiet and to reassure him that this would stay between them. He went on to tear a part of his shirt, wrap his arm in it and head the opposite way, away from my father’s residence towards a local clinic to tend to his wound.

My dad said he couldn’t sleep that night. He kept expecting the door to his room to fling open, and in his father would walk in to give him a well-deserved thrashing. That didn’t happen. The very next day, Nathan showed up on time, said a hearty hello to my dad and accompanied him to school without any incident. My dad thought that was strange, but the same thing happened after school, with Nathan not saying anything about the incident from the previous day. At this point, my dad had to ask. He asked why Nathan was so weird. He asked why Nathan neither punished him, nor reported him to be punished by his parents. He asked why he was behaving as though nothing had happened, when in fact, something did happen?!

Each time my dad told this story, he would pause at that point and his eyes would glass over with unshed tears. “You are just a child”, Nathan would say. “I forgave you even before I handed you the blade. Don’t think about this, I still love you the same” he said.

Even though I heard that story so many times, even though I knew my dad grew up to be a different man, a good man, each time I heard the exchange between my dad as a boy and Nathan after that incident, my blood would often boil in anger. Anger at the boy my dad used to be. Why would anybody do that?! I wondered. How does a young boy of that age even contemplate such a heinous act? Why did Nathan let him go scot-free? And why in God’s name, did Nathan even hand over such a deranged, spoiled boy, a blade in the first place?!

Even now, I confess that I still get angry when I remember that story. I like to imagine I was Nathan, and I would often smile while lost in thought, at how much I would enjoy beating my dad up for such a terrible character he had exhibited. Oh, I would beat that kid up. But then I’m always drawn back to reality by the lesson my dad sought to teach me from that experience. Bloody as it was, unjustified, unmerited the mercy and restraint by Nathan, my dad would always point to that particular story as his very first encounter with Grace. He would say, “Nathan never mentioned the word Grace, but when I heard a preacher talk about it many years later, in my village when I was about 17, I knew then that this word he was preaching about, was what Nathan demonstrated to me all those years ago”.

It is almost synonymous with Christianity and as a word, it has become arguably the most used, abused and overused word in the Christian lexicon, but many people still do not fully grasp the meaning nor the concept of it: Grace.

When Christians use the word Grace now, they often do so in the context of some financial breakthrough. Sad really. Understandable though. For the longest time, I too did not really understand the gravity of the word. It was just another word in the Christendom, I had grown up listening to. Looking back now, I sometimes wish I had asked my dad the more important questions, to help me really unravel what that word meant. As I came to know, my dad to his dying day, believed so much in the Grace of God, so much that he would routinely say, “even if no one in this world would worship God anymore, I would. He has taken me from my cesspit of sin, cleaned me up and given me a brand-new life, and I didn’t have to do anything for it!”

In there, between cutting his guardian up and learning he had been forgiven even before the act, was the lesson. Here was this child, a rising star amongst his peers, upholding the tenets and laws of his religion and taking pride in his being devout. He had learnt so much about His works, His acts of charity, His devoutness, His devotion that would all give him His reward. In everything he did, he sought to do it for God all by His own ability. Not once did it ever occur to him that what he contemplated, was a lifetime of personal righteousness that was bound to elude him every now and then, based solely on his frailty as a human; his impulses, his flaws and his own nature would continue to be in conflict with any ability he could muster, to remain without blemish. To achieve righteousness.

And here came this young man, Nathan, whose own knowledge of the pain and hurt he would endure, did not stop him from forgiving this boy even before the act was committed. To further compound the confusion of that little boy who was going to work his way to mercy and love, Nathan declared that not even that open gash of injury was going to stop him from loving, continuously. I can imagine that it was a lot to take in. It was a lot to understand. But isn’t that what grace is about? To be loved and forgiven; to be reunited with your maker not in spite of your many failings, but despite them all. Committed atrocities and even pending ones. Isn’t that beautiful? No, isn’t that gracious?

What I wish I knew about grace, simply put, is that there is absolutely nothing I can do in my entire life, to deserve an ounce of love from a Holy God. Nothing! Whatever love I do receive from the divine, is an example of receiving more than I deserve, a demonstration of Grace. What I wish I knew about grace, is the comfort that comes with the knowledge that the creator of the universe, gives a damn about me, so much so he has considered that by design, I cannot save me from myself much less conceive any goodness that matters, and that I cannot measure up to the perfection that is expected of me, hence his grace that covers a multitude of sin, shortcomings and flaws. Complete with no requirements or prerequisites, just lots undeserved love like Nathan had. Grace without merit.