I find it interesting that so many of us call ourselves Christians and yet refuse to act like we are saved. How can we accept that all of our sins have been forgiven if we refuse to let ourselves off the hook for even one of them?

The bible is full of people with control issues. The first two who come to mind are Abram and his wife, Sarai.[ii] After the LORD came to Abram in a vision and promised him a son, this Old Testament twosome decided to help God’s plan along by having Abram sleep with Sarai’s maidservant Hagar.[iii] Then there was King David who called for a census to determine whether he would enter into battle instead of trusting God to deliver him from the enemy, regardless of the number of fighters present.[iv]

These biblical characters failed to realize until it was too late that, by relying on our own strength, we deny the need for God's. I learned this lesson the hard way as I struggled to make it through the work day. Somewhere in the midst of my self-inflicted isolation, I asked myself: Who’s there for the sinner?

It’s normal to offer sympathy and support to someone who has been hurt, but the pain of the wrongdoer often goes unnoticed. Maybe that’s why so many people play the part of the victim: they are desperate for the fellowship that goes with it.

About a year after my neck healed from the accident, I got to see what it was like to be on the other side of a collision when I returned to my car after a long day at work to find that someone had knocked it into the street. The vehicle sat at a 45-degree angle from the curb, looking as vulnerable as I felt when I called the police to report the damage.

“It will be a couple of hours before an officer can come by to fill out a report.”

Great, I thought to myself as I put my phone away and sat down on the sidewalk to wait. Who would crash into a vehicle and drive off without leaving a note?

Almost on queue, a man pulled up to answer my latest question.

“You don’t have to wait,” he explained. “A police report has been filed.”

“What happened?” I asked.

“I was working down the street when a man ran the stop sign and crashed into your car. The accident was pretty bad. An ambulance had to take him to the hospital.”

“Where’s his car?” I asked.

“The police towed it away,” he explained. “If you stop by the station in the morning, you should be able to get a copy of the report.”

I should have felt concern for the man who went to the hospital. Instead, all I felt was relief. Finally, I was a victim instead of the villain.

In the week that followed, I told anyone who would listen about what happened. I was still telling the tale on the day I drove my car to the body shop to have the trunk and rear bumper repaired. What I didn’t realize was that the narrative was not over. Instead, it was moving to the front of my vehicle as the light ahead of me turned red and my car slid helplessly on black ice . . . until it crashed into the back of another vehicle.

Once again, I was the sinner as I exchanged information with the other driver and steered my crumpled car in the direction of the repair shop. Thankfully, it was closed when I arrived.

Bill can deal with it, I decided as I put my key in the after hours drop box. I can only guess what the service technicians were thinking when they saw my vehicle and compared it to the estimate they had prepared just days before. Maybe they were thinking the same thoughts that must go through Jesus’s mind every time we drop a new sin off at the cross.

Romans 3:23 states that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”. Knowing that all of us will be the wrongdoer at one point or another has given me a heart for people who mess up and a head that understands how quickly that person could be me—like a few weeks ago when I made an unexpected stop on my way home from running errands.

It was the day before Bill and I were leaving for a ten-day trip overseas. I had picked up a packet of pictures from a local photo shop and was driving home when the stop-and-go traffic got the best of me.

I need to get out of this lane, I told myself as I braked for the second time and waited for the vehicle in front of me to start moving again. Not one to sit and do nothing, I picked up the packet of photographs to look through them while I waited. Eventually, traffic started moving again and I stepped on the gas as I placed the packet of photos on the passenger seat. I looked down for just a second, but that was all it took as the person ahead of me brakeed to a stop . . . and my van came crashing into him.

“I’ll follow you to the nearest side street,” I told the driver of the Lincoln Navigator when I got out to inspect the damage.

“I can’t see any damage,” he said while running his hand over his rear bumper.

“I think my van has enough for both of us,” I replied as I checked out my crumpled hood.

Feeling like a pro at exchanging insurance information, I apologized to the other driver and dutifully called Bill.

“It’s just a van,” he assured me. “Are you okay?”

Surprisingly, I was. Somewhere between my first crashes and this one, I learned that we don’t get to decide our worth . . . God does.

Embracing this fact is part of what it means to be the uncommon woman that Susie Larson wrote about on page 26 of her book when she said: “To be uncommon is to silence the voice of our accuser that we may listen to the Lord’s whisper. . . . The uncommon woman refuses to let her mistakes or weaknesses define her because she is defined by His strengths alone.”

Making a mistake doesn’t mean that we are one. And as hard as it is for some people to admit, our sin serves a purpose if it breaks us down enough to see that only God can make us whole. We know this from the apostle John who, in 1 John 1:9, offers us this promise: “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.”

My van was purified from unrighteousness when it received a new hood, front bumper, air conditioning unit, radiator, air bag system and driver’s side seat belt. In addition to these mandatory corrections, the service technicians also fixed several old dents and door dings. It felt like a new vehicle when I picked it up from the repair shop. More important than how it looked, is how I felt about the person inside when I realized that Jesus came to comfort, not just the saints, but sinners. And I, like my van, have been redeemed.

(Click on the image above to view a before photo of the van.)

Quotes to Grow On