he makes our failures his glories

Today at the nursing home I work at a man I care for managed to get through the fire escape door walk downstairs and outside without my knowledge. This man is in his eighties and has a pretty hard time walking in the first place. I'm sure it has been a number of years since he has navigated stairs. He has fallen several times merely attempting to rise from bed. If you asked me whether he could walk down stairs without falling I would say that he would definitely fall. It is nothing short of a miracle that he didn't fall to his injury or death.

When I learned what happened it scared the shit out of me. In a worst case scenario of the events of this evening, I would have lost not only my job but quite possibly my license of nursing, which would prevent me from ever being a nurse again. The Lord knows I'm a loving nurse and I am rudely awakened at facing my mistake. He saved me tonight, pure and simple. What is most incredible is that he didn't save me when I was asking to be saved, or even aware of my need. He saved me from my own mistake, he saved that man's life and my livelihood.

Tonight I realized, I have this filter I put over God as if he is motivated like us, as if he only scratches my back when I scratch his. I have thought of him as if he were human as if he rewarded my goodness with blessings, but he is not like that. He doesn't think the way I do and he doesn't work the way I do, as different as heaven is from earth so different is the way he works from the way I work*. Even in the middle of our mistakes he remains faithful, when we overlook something he is there to scoop it up and save it. He truly is a more wild and more different kind of thing than I have ever heard of.

*Isaiah 55:8-9 paraphrased