The Grace of Ducks Askew

A few weeks ago, Brennan Manning passed away. He's the author of The Ragamuffin Gospel and a number of other books that have been influential in my life. One of his last books was entitled All is Grace which I haven't read. But last week, I mulled over that title. All is grace. Is that true? Do I believe that?

As a couple, my husband and I are "ducks in a row" kind of people; we like to have and work toward having our ducks in a row, getting things that should be done done. While our ducks were never actually all in a row, since we've had kids we've gotten more ducks and more of them aren't in a row. And that bothers us, and we complain about that.

So what I pondered was, "Can my disorderly ducks be a gift from God?" And the answer is of course, yes.

Some people are actively aware that the order in their ducks is because of God's active grace in their lives. Like our friends who are in a pinch but have been able to pay down some medical bills because of, to make a long story short, God miracles. Ducks brought back into a row because of God. Awesome. That, however, is not us.

We would prefer to tell ourselves that we have aligned our ducks and that if we tried hard enough we could get them perfectly aligned and when we did that, God would have to smile on us. This is our tendency although when we talk in terms of ducks it's easier to see what a lie that is.

So this past Friday, we went in for a second cystic fibrosis test for D. The first one didn't collect enough sweat to test. So we've been in limbo these past 2 months wondering if CF is the reason for his lack of weight gain. We're hoping this new test gives us a clear answer one way or the other. Turns out. for other reasons, that whether this test is positive or negative we have to see a specialist for another thing. And the Friday test only produced marginally more sweat so we might get a no-test again.

D's health and development is a break-dancing, purple-plaid duck that is not playing nice with any of our other ducks. And this uncertainty is in fact a grace in our lives. As much as I think it is a deep grace that we are ducks in a row people who know our neighbors, pay our bills and have 529s for our kids, D's break-dancing, purple-plaid duck reminds us that God is not grading us on our ducks.

Instead, each duck is a gift, one we get to care for, one we are empowered by God to care for. Whether they are orderly or dancing out of our control, God already smiles on us and already knows what we're going to need.