The man closest to Bill was our biggest obstacle as he slumped so far down in his chair that his knees touched the row in front of him. I thought about telling the girls to save themselves but, when that sounded a little dramatic, I opted for a more subtle approach instead.

“Excuse us,” I told to the man, hoping that my words would convince him to sit up. When they didn’t, I nudged the girls to keep moving until they made it to the seats that Bill was saving for us.

“Did you see that?” I complained after I sat down beside him.

“Don’t let it get to you.”

As hard as the advice was to hear, I knew that Bill was right. Nobody can make us feel inferior (or angry) without our consent. I feel so strongly about this that I created a rhyme to help both of my daughters remember that they decide what thoughts they let inside.

Andy Stanley once said that you “can tell a lot about a person … by the rules they establish, and even more by the rules they enforce.”[i]

“We protect best what we value most”, the author added on page 56 of his book The Grace of God.

What my rhyme revealed about me is that I was not about to let a group of total strangers rob me of my peace. Midway through the movie, my resolve was tested when one of my daughters had to use the washroom and I braced myself for another knee-knocking experience. As I suspected, the second attempt to squeeze by them was just as infuriating as the first.

How hard is it to sit up? I silently screamed.

Like all stressful moments, this one passed when my oldest returned and we all settled back down to watch the rest of the movie. Every once in a while, I felt the irresistible urge to look at the couples sitting beside me. Each time I did, the sour look on their faces remained unchanged, even when everyone else in the theatre was laughing.

They can’t be having a good time, I said to myself as I looked again in their direction. This thought led to another one as I asked myself: What if what I thought was intentional rudeness was actually an incredible brokenness?

My view of people (and their public outbursts) changed that day in the movie theatre as I began to see their impoliteness as a synonym for pain. Although grace doesn’t remove difficult people from our lives, it does help us to understand them.

I put my newfound skills to good use when a hurried driver whose last second decision to pull out from behind a slow moving vehicle caused her to nearly crash into mine.

I thought it was okay to go because the mail truck that was approaching on my left was slowing down to turn. What I didn’t count on was the impatient person who jutted around him at the exact moment that I was pulling forward. As soon as I realized what the woman was doing, I hit the brakes and waited for her to pass by.

Instead of driving away, the woman who was in too much of a hurry to wait for the mail truck to get out of her way, stopped her car in the middle of the intersection to tell me off instead. Her expensive sunglasses and perfectly-styled hair did nothing to upgrade her image as she screamed at me through the passenger-side window.

For someone to assume the worst and go this far out of her way to lash out another, there had to be another reason. Bill agreed when I told him what happened and he said: “She’s probably upset about something else.”

Are there really that many hurting people at Christmas? More importantly: What can we do to help?

If Pastor Andy Stanley had been listening to my conversation with Bill, he would have agreed that more important than hearing a good sermon, is seeing a godly example of grace. “Just as sin sometimes results in bad things happening to good people, so grace creates the possibility of good things happening to undeserving people.”[ii]

“Moved by love,” the author continued, “he … uses the evil intentions of ‘bad’ people to redeem them.”[iii]

The funny thing about redemption is that the people who need it most are the ones who deserve it the least. Last week, I was one of these people as I prepared for a holiday road trip to Nebraska. The stress of wrapping gifts for family and friends and packing up everything we would need while we were gone had me so on edge that I found myself barking out orders instead of asking for help.

Eventually, Hollie grew tired of my drama and created a little of her own when she asked: “Mom, do you even like going back to Nebraska?” As soon as she said these words, I realized that once in a while the irritable person my family has to put up with ... is me.

The hypocrisy of making our home look festive when we're in no mood to celebrate, and of buying gifts for other families when ours has been neglected, is something that we all must face (and fight against). There's no way around it. If we want a nativity in our home, there should be evidence that Jesus is in our hearts as we bring back the totes, unpack our good nature, and resolve that yuletide cheer will never again take a backseat to creating it.

Verses to Heed

“Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.”

Colossians 4:6

“One who loves a pure heart and who speaks with grace will have the king for a friend.”

Proverbs 22:11

Quotes to Grow On

“Grace is the vehicle God uses on occasion to ensure that we get precisely what we don’t deserve.”

Andy Stanley, The Grace of God, p. 34

“The way of grace is offered; it is not earned. It is offered to all people, regardless of who they are. So when you catch yourself bouncing back and forth between judging others and condemning yourself, pause. Pause and remember: you can’t be good enough; you don’t even have to be. That is the way of grace.”

Andy Stanley, The Grace of God, p. 143