Fallibility and Grace

I’m fascinated by stories of little Helga, age five, living in the midst of war, eating watery cabbage soup and living in abandoned (primitive, temporary) US barracks in East Germany – learning so early in life the lessons of transformation of the soul and spirit. I’ve decided deprivation and want, as well as unexpected rescue and provision, imprinted her in deep and marvelous ways. Simply put, her atypical, war-torn childhood ended up ultimately fashioning a trusting and obedient heart.

Helga learned as a little child that even adults don’t have all the answers since even they (the icons of mastery in her child-eyes) sometimes disappointed her confidence. She learned to be fallible, to always reach for the Father’s grace, more grace, and to assume human life is not knowable, controllable, or understandable, but rather a journey to continually enlarge the human heart’s capacity to receive more and more of Him.

All these years later she is still growing, still receiving, still becoming the person who was forged in a war-ravaged land that stole her earthly father’s life and challenged her mother with survival. Yet she is anything but unforgiving or bitter – rather, she has built on that early foundation of want, need, and dependence to continually develop His gifts: mercy and faith.

Madeline L’Engle says this:

“To be human is, yes, to be fallible…We are…creatures who know that we don’t know. When I was a child, I used to think that being grown up meant that you would know. Grown-ups had the answers. This is an illusion that a lot of people don’t lose when they grow up. But our very fallibility is one of our human glories. If we are fallible we are free to grow and develop. If we are infallible we are rigid, stuck in one position…”