“Lord, have mercy!”

As a good born-and-bred, southern girl, I have heard this phrase my entire life and used it about that many times myself. And, listen, it’s so handy because it can mean so many different things. Observe:

“Lord, have mercy!” (insert excited face) translates into, “I’m so excited, happy, surprised, ecstatic, just tickled pink!” – this last one could also be a southern thing…

“LORD. HAVE. MERCY!” (insert frustrated, irritated, downright mad face) translates into, “You are on my very last nerve, I’ve warned you for the last time, I’m about to punch you in the face!”

See? And, look, these are just two kind of opposite examples, with several more in between. You’re welcome.

As you might have guessed, the idea of mercy, along with its counterpart, grace, are on my mind today.

Mercy is defined as: “the compassionate treatment of those in distress, especially when it is within one’s power to punish or harm them.” It comes from the Latin words merced or merces, which means “price paid.“

Grace is defined as: God’s undeserved favor, given without regard to whether it is deserved.

We often hear about grace and mercy together and sometimes these two words are actually used interchangeably. And, guess what? The apostle Paul and even our Jesus had a lot to say about mercy and grace.

Paul actually opened most of his letters to his churches, offering peace and grace to the members, and he even closed a few with the same idea. When Paul asked God three times (ha! I laugh at this, because THREE TIMES??? Gosh, I ask three hundred times for stuff.) to take away his “thorn in the flesh.” Now, scholars disagree on exactly what this “thorn in the flesh” was – I believe there’s evidence that it was some sort of physical ailment – but all we do know is that it bothered Paul and he wanted it gone. Each time He asked, Jesus came back with the same answer that we find in

2 Corinthians 12:9 “My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.”

And, y’all look. I don’t care who you are, we all need God’s grace and mercy. We need favor, even when we don’t necessarily deserve it, and we certainly need to be treated with compassion during times of distress. We all need it – whether we realize it or not.

Now, I’ve been in a season – dang, it feels like an entire LIFE, sometimes – where I’m the person. I’m the person who has desperately BEGGED God for mercy – BEGGED God to end my physical and emotional suffering, BEGGED God to look down and realize “I’m dying over here!”, BEGGED God to intervene and get rid of this STUPID CANCER, and on and on. Yep, lots of begging going on over here.

The crazy thing about it, despite my anger, confusion, and disillusionment, I can already look back and see that, indeed, God’s grace has been “enough” – not extra, not necessarily satisfying, didn’t really bring pleasantry or even contentment, but enough…for me to keep breathing. God’s favor held me together, it’s given me hope, it’s been a much-needed extension of His love for me. So, yeah, His grace has been enough.

So, at this point, you guys might be thinking,

“Well, isn’t that great. Yay, Sherra!” and ready to keep scrolling. But, here’s the deal: if Jesus Himself finds it necessary and important to extend grace and mercy – and remember, when we don’t deserve it – and Paul does the same thing, shouldn’t we be extending grace and mercy to others? Because – just keeping it real here – as quickly as I say God’s grace and mercy have been enough, I have to tell you that I haven’t received grace and mercy from everyone I’ve come into contact with during the last couple of years of illness, emotional trauma, and grief. Honestly, I’ve had some pretty brutal things said to me. Things like:

“Have you checked your heart? There must be some sin in your life.”

“Do you think you have a demon, is that why you’re not getting well?”

“You just need to concentrate on God and “pull yourself up by your bootstraps.”

“You’re not using the right words when you pray. You’re not speaking the right things over your life. You’re not reading enough/the right Scriptures.”

“God’s testing you. He knows He can trust you with this.”

“If you really trusted God and believed in Him, you wouldn’t be this upset.”

“You can do it. You’re strong!”

And, I’m gonna stop there. Now, let me just say, right off the bat, that most of these comments were made to me by people who love me and just wanted to say something that would help. But guess what? None of it helped! None of it!! Let me just assure you, when you find yourself going through the “valley of the shadow of death,” you don’t need profound words of advice, or all the “let me figure this out for you” clap-trap. To this day, I don’t know why God chose to allow me to go through what I have been through. I just pray that He will use it to help someone else and to bring Himself glory. I would’ve never chosen to walk through cancer TWICE, have the life-changing surgery I had to have, all while grieving the death of my father, but by God’s GRACE and MERCY, we’re doing it! We’re hating it, but we’re doing it.

And, you don’t have to take my word for it. Look at how Paul described a particularly difficult time in his life:

2 Corinthians 1:8-10a We think you ought to know, dear brothers and sisters, about the trouble we went through in the province of Asia. We were crushed and overwhelmed beyond our ability to endure, and we thought we would never live through it. In fact, we expected to die. But, as a result, we stopped relying on ourselves and learned to rely on God, who raises the dead. And He did rescue us from mortal danger and He will rescue us again.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t read many lofty words, “life is just perfect because I’m a minister of the Gospel,” or “I’m just gonna pretend like none of this is happening or having an effect on me,” do you? Now, I don’t see evidence of Paul choosing to wallow around and allow himself to be completely overwhelmed and overtaken by these trials, either. But he was very honest about where he was and how hard it was.

And you know what I say? Praise God! Listen, in my experience, a true relationship with God begins with complete honesty with God. He knows how we feel anyway, HELLO!!! And along that same vein, our job as Believers is to also extend grace and mercy to those in the middle of life’s most difficult storms – not to judge, not to try to explain or fix it, not to minimize it, which, unfortunately, is how all those comments above made me feel. The truth is, the people who ministered to me during this time the most were the people who were JUST HERE – here to listen, here to cry with me, here to hug me, here to shake their heads with me, here to show compassion and love to someone who felt like she was going under for the 10th time!

And, yes, we do need to know and hear the truth. We need to cling to God’s promises – that is what has sustained me! That’s a given in my life, that I choose to believe that God is working, that He loves me, and He has a plan. But, unfortunately, it doesn’t make trouble any less troubling when you’re going through it. Bummer.

Guys, it’s not a formula. It truly is about trusting God’s plan, however ridiculous and wrong it seems. God is sovereign and is looking ahead at what’s to come and who we need to be for His Kingdom in the future. And we sure can use some Aarons and Hurs to walk beside us, hold us up, and encourage us. Just think if Aaron’s and Hur’s attitudes had been,

“What’s wrong with you, Moses? What do you mean you can’t hold your arms up anymore? Hasn’t God equipped you to hold those arms up? Do you have some sin in your life that you’re not telling us about? Do you not truly trust God?”

Yikes! It seems dumb just to type that. The truth is, we need each other, and we REALLY need each other when life is not kind.

Who needs our grace and mercy today? If you’re like me, instantly people come to mind. So, let’s do it, friends! Let’s be the extension of God’s grace and mercy to someone really going through it today!. If Paul needed it, if David needed it, if Peter needed it, if the “Sons of Thunder” needed it, then I’d say we’re in pretty good company and need it, too.