“I’m sorry. He said what?”
I had been finishing my morning coffee when I’d decided to check in with the AAA insurance representative. (In hindsight, contacting an insurance adjuster first thing is not the morning ritual I recommend.)
A few weeks ago, I was driving through downtown Dayton on a Friday night when a black SUV pulled through a stop sign and smashed into the side of my car. After we both pulled over, the college student behind the wheel apologized profusely, told me this was his first accident, and asked me what would happen next.
I told him everything would be fine, that the officers would take a report, and that we would both be free to go.
“So how does your insurance work?” he asked.
“Oh,” I said, trying to be gentle. “Unfortunately your insurance is going to have to cover this, since it was your fault.”
His eyes, which had been as big as saucers, began to darken.
“Why’s that?” He asked. “Even if it was a mutual accident?”
This was getting awkward, but I forged on.
“No, I’m sorry,” I said. “It’s because you ran a stop sign. It’s OK and we’re both fine, but it will be your insurance.”
He dejectedly returned to his car.
When the officer finally arrived, he was barely out of his squad car when the young man blurted out, “My car wasn’t moving. I don’t know how this could have happened.”
The officer walked around my car, took a cursory look at my smashed rear passenger door, and chuckled.
“Let’s not play games man,” he said. “You want to explain how your car did that to hers without moving?”
The poor kid was practically shaking and his eyes were saucers again, but he was committed now.
“It wasn’t moving. I don’t know. I can’t explain it.”
The officer had long lost patience with this poor young man by the time he’d changed his story again. This time, he was unable to see my car because he was under a bridge. At least in this version, his vehicle was moving.
But I wasn’t expecting a third story when I contacted AAA.
“Ma’am, my insured tells me that you took a turn too tightly and hit his vehicle,” the woman said curtly.
I burst out laughing, which was apparently not well taken.
“I’m sorry,” I said, “It’s just that he told the officer two other stories. And it’s not possible for cars to drive sideways.”
“Ma’am, it’s a he-said, she-said situation,” the rep replied dryly. “We’ll have to investigate it further.”
I got off the phone, emailed her a copy of the police report, and then sat and stared for a minute.
I stared at my Christmas tree.
And I thought, people aren’t always who you want them to be.
They’re not always honest, or kind, or respectful, or even decent. They do selfish things and they act foolishly and sometimes — this is the hardest to swallow — they hurt you and go on, without thinking another thought about it.
I breathed and I stared, and I remembered something that happened to me ten years ago.
I was a reporter rushing back to the newsroom with a story, and somehow I must have been distracted. At a red light, I looked up suddenly, slammed on my brakes, and screeched straight into the car ahead of me with a sickening thud.
My timing was impeccable, for a police officer happened to be driving by in the oncoming lane at that very moment. It had to have been the easiest report he’d ever written.
My victim was an elderly gentleman who got out of his car, looked at me, looked at his car, looked at the officer, and smiled.
“Officer,” he said. “This is a sweet young girl and clearly she didn’t mean any harm. Is it OK if you just skip the citation and we can all be on our way?”
The officer, who was already eagerly writing the citation, stopped short.
“Are you sure?” he asked. “This was very clearly her fault.”
“Yes,” the man smiled warmly. He took my hand, told me he was a pastor, and said he hoped the rest of my day went better than this.
After I’d thanked him and apologized profusely, I drove away, parked at a nearby gas station, and cried.
And I promised myself that if I was ever in a position to offer grace the way that kind pastor had, I would do it.
The other night when the Dayton Police Officer said, “I’ll leave it up to you whether I write the other driver a citation,” I’d said, “No, don’t write him a ticket,” and I’d made a point to go back to his window and kindly say goodbye and that it was OK before I left.
And today I looked at my Christmas tree and thought, grace isn’t just for people who apologize.
Forgiveness isn’t relegated to those who own up to their faults and repent and accept it with gratefulness. It’s so much deeper and more generous than that.
The lights glimmer on the tree, and it is the time of year when we’re coming to the end of so many things.
Little hurts, like pebbles, piled up in 2018, didn’t they?
But with joy and a little awe I realize, forgiveness isn’t controlled by the guilty.
Those who wrong us don’t have the option of reducing or negating our grace. They don’t have the power to obtain it or reject it, and nothing they say or do can affect its quality or its quantity.
Grace is about the giver.
Its strength, its depth, its relentlessness in the face of mounting hurts — all are a function not of the remorse of the guilty, but of the character of the forgiver. In a paradox worthy of the universe itself, the wronged wield the most powerful gift of all.
The year winds down and the twinkling lights glitter bravely against the cold, and this is the meaning of Christmas.
It comes at the end of all those stings, all those stabs and jabs that piled up this year, and brings us suddenly, quietly back to the world’s greatest Grace-Giver. The one Person who stopped the cycle of “hurt people hurt people,” who took the hurt but gave the grace, who forgave people who didn’t apologize, people who didn’t give a damn one way or the other.
The injustices are many, but the grace can always be greater. We can choose to let the heavy things fall away, the rocks in our hands dissolve into nothing, the hardness inside melt to joy.
And we are forgiven and we are given the power to forgive, a gravity-defying power, one that makes us free again, from both guilt and bitterness, just in time for a fresh new year.
I look at the police report on my end table and chuckle. A fender bender, and a metaphor for many things.
As the year winds down, can we take a moment to smile with relief? We don’t need to wait on an apology anymore, from anyone.
It’s Christmas, and life can be light as a feather again.
Grace is just that huge.