Wednesday, December 28, 2011

The High Cost of Living


What if the biggest mistake of your life collided with... the biggest moment of your life?  

What was supposed to be the best moment of a new mother's life turned into Nathalie's worst nightmare; a very defining nightmare that changes her life forever.

Nathalie can feel contractions but it is six weeks too early and she doesn't know whether she is supposed to be concerned. Her husband is caught up in his job, working till all hours of the night and has left her home alone. She decides to get a cab and go to the hospital - better safe than sorry - and bag in hand she goes outside to wait for the cab.

Henry is a charming, kind man who has somehow resigned himself to the life of being a drug dealer in Montreal. Having just left the bar - having had too much to drink - he takes a wrong turn and heads the wrong way down a one way street. Nathalie was looking the other way, expecting the cab any moment, when she is run down. With a car full of drugs on delivery and an expired VISA Henry leaves her there and makes an anonymous call from a pay phone instead. He doesn't know if she is dead or alive and he is torn between what is best for her or best for himself.

So he decides to track her down. She is OK, but her baby didn't make it. However, in Nathalie's frail condition they could not remove the baby - not yet. She has to heal first. So she is forced to carry her lifeless baby inside her for two or three more weeks.

She finds a friend in Henry - a "stranger" who defended her in a bar while she tried to drown her sorrows - and as he gets to know her, his anxiety increases knowing full well that the truth will come out and there will be consequences. Even though this event changes his future forever, he cannot undo the mistake from his past, not for his own sake or Nathalie's.

God never promised that life on this earth would be only good and wonderful. He tells us that things will go wrong and we will make mistakes - we are all sinners, saved by grace, and who will never be perfect - but in His Word He gives us the tools we need for everyday life so that we can live victoriously in spite of this world; in spite of our imperfect selves. He offers us forgiveness, gracious new beginnings and unconditional love if we will receive it, but even if a repentant heart finds forgiveness in a moment it doesn't always mean that the consequences of our sin disappear into thin air; a vapor in the wind.

Grace doesn't work like a magic wand or a rewind button; neither does it give us the right to do as we please with no regard for the consequences. It doesn't automatically free us from having to take responsibility for our actions and choices. God doesn't offer a magic potion but what He does promise, however, is that He will never leave us, nor forsake us. If we've made a mess and we come to Him with a repentant heart He is more than willing to forgive us and to help us to deal with the consequences. He doesn't promise that you don't have to go through it but He promises that you don't have to go through it alone.

He always knew that we would have ashes and so He made provision for a promise of beauty through Christ. 

No comments:

Post a Comment