I heard a message yesterday while listening to the radio about the importance of recognizing the balancing of grace and truth. The point being made was that people tend to prioritize one or the other. This is true in their relationships with one another as well as how they view God. Some people emphasize God’s mercy and grace to the neglect of God’s truth and justice; while others focus on God’s judgement and the laws He gave to guide us. In order to get an understanding of who God really is and how He relates to us and how He wants us to relate to each other you have to keep truth and grace in balance with each other. If you draw near to God’s heart you gain a better understanding of how that works in our lives. On the one hand, God gave us the 10 commandments and other instructions in which He tells us to obey Him; but on the other hand Jesus’ illustration of God’s mercy in His story of the prodigal son shows God embracing and forgiving the prodigal when he comes to his senses are returns to his father. God shows us a balance between truth and grace in many places throughout the Scripture.

As I reflected on the message I heard yesterday I thought about the family I grew up in, and how I want to portray them in the book I am writing. I want people who read the book to get a truthful picture of my home. In so many ways my parents lived out the faith they preached and taught. When I focus on that I can come up with many illustrations of how I/we were blessed to be raised in our home. But there were key times and key ways in which my parents let me down that can’t be ignored or downplayed. It’s hard for me to even type those words without jumping to their defense, but it would be dishonest to speak only of how they blessed us and be silent about things that wounded me/us deeply. So I will attempt to present both realities in what I choose to put into the book.