Casey Anthony has been found innocent. Culture and society at large have found her guilty. Is it possible that both are true? She is guilty but it could not be proven in a court of law? The uproar is that she should not get to walk away when it seems so obvious that she was involved in the crime. Do you think she has been able to walk away? The prison that society believes she deserves has been constructed around her despite the court of laws; yet the peer group that was her jury, a judge and attorneys that have a formal education reached the conclusion together. Did these simple to complex people get it wrong? Is it possible for simple and complex people to get it wrong?
I think we get it wrong every day. Here is the stinging truth; it’s not up to us. We are called to continually extend the boundaries of the lines of God’s love, not our own. This is a wise thought I had to learn from my friend Kyle, because he understands grace better than I do.
“30 days before you called the police?!?!?!”, I screamed the first time I heard about Casey. I am a mother; I cannot even imagine having one day go by, let alone 30. Do you think my automatic guilty flare went off in my brain instantaneously? Yep.
But here is the deconstruction of my paradigm- God is consistent and I choose to amazingly and radically trust Him over myself. I am a person of a thousand second chances, most of which I’ve never picked up because I didn’t think I deserved them. Casey has been given a second chance and society is preaching she doesn’t deserve it. But then let me ask you this.
What do you think of when you hear the name Peter from the bible? Disciple, the one who got out of the boat, the one who walked on water, the rock & the one who denied Christ three times, the one who sank in faithlessness, the one who questioned. Is it possible to even understand why Christ told him he would deny Him? Christ told him it would happen knowing He has already forgiven him, knowing it would be fear that drive him to be a coward. Christ told him it would happen because He wanted it to be so clearly understood that it is by grace that we are saved, it is by grace that we are given a second chance, it is by grace that we are able to put the gospel on display. It is because of Christ and not ourselves.
I pick up my second chances now. I give away second chances a little more often too. Not always, and not without being reminding of who God is and who I am not. But it is because of my second chances, it is because of my understanding of grace, in which Casey may be guilty but I believe she deserves a second chance.
