When I was a child growing up in a staunch Mennonite home, life was quite clear. There were wrongs — we called them ‘sins’ — and there were rights. The goal was to avoid the sins and do the right thing. Black versus white. I attended a Christian high school (boarding school) with very conservative leanings back in a time when homeschooling wasn’t a thing. Although I discovered there were more evangelical denominations than I’d dreamed of, the lines were still clear. Kids who obeyed the rules were good kids. Rebels generally got kicked out. White. Black.
There wasn’t much gray in my life. There wasn’t much grace. Things were right or wrong. Good or bad. Truths or lies.
This bubble lasted an amazingly long time, looking back. Or maybe I was harder headed than most of my peers, more focused on sticking my ostrich head in the sand than in understanding the layers humans came in. More judgmental. Less merciful.
One incident stands out in my memory. It took place not long after Jim and I were married. We were invited to the pastor’s house for Sunday lunch along with a young family. And — gasp! — they weren’t married. The guy was divorced. As I recall, he had a child or two from his previous marriage. Then he’d been living with this woman, and they had a child together. And THEN they became believers.
What now?
Well, in my insulated black-and-white world, there was little mercy or grace. Divorce was a sin, and remarriage was a bigger one. I could kind of see (even then) that there were circumstances where people should get divorced. Abuse, for instance. But remarriage? No.
I wrestled with that situation that day, and probably for weeks and months afterward. My legalistic attitude would have that baby grow up without his father. Would deny his parents a chance to marry and establish a Christian home that could offer forgiveness and grace to each other. My attitude would slice and dice that little family and punish them for the remainder of their life on earth.
What of new life in Christ? What of Jesus’ blood covering all sin? What of ‘old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new’? If Jesus really paid the price for our sins, why do we have the right to allow past errors to block progress?
We don’t. We really don’t. I could see that then, and I’ve seen it more clearly with each passing year (all 39 of them). What God has called clean and holy and white, I have no right to call black.
While I do know they married and established a Bible-based home back then, I haven’t thought of that family often over the years. But, apparently, this first real wrestling I had with black and white made a deep impression on me (as it should have)! Because Dan Ranta and Dixie Wayling came into my Urban Farm Fresh Romance series as throw-away characters back in the second book, Butterflies on Breezes, and refused to leave until their story was told.
Back then, Dixie had two kids by two different men and was living with Dan and expecting his baby. They had no faith foundation in their lives until Dan’s sister found the Lord. His journey fascinated me, and it played out in the sidelines over the next few Urban Farm Fresh Romance novels.
Dixie was supremely unimpressed when Dan became a believer. The decisions they each made changed their relationship from the core out. What would it take for Dixie to turn toward Jesus? How could they find their way back together… and should they? All those nuances of gray came out to play in full force.
In Dancing at Daybreak, which releases today, Dan’s next-door neighbor Jacob Riehl reminds him that two wrongs don’t make a right. That sometimes it is best to cut one’s losses completely rather than continue to compound the wrongs already done. Where Dan only prayed for Dixie’s restoration so that they could marry and form a complete family, Jacob challenged him deeper to ask if that was even God’s will. But, how could it not be?
Dixie Wayling thought she’d found love with her third child’s father until the guy found Jesus. Right. Like she wanted anything to do with killjoy religion, especially when Dan issues his ultimatum: get married… or one of them moves out. Wasn’t going to be her.
Dan Ranta can’t give up his newfound faith to keep Dixie, but after she leaves the kids to go drinking with friends, he turns the tables and boots her out of the house he’s paying rent on. She declares her own conditions: give up Jesus, and she’ll take him back.
What will it take for Dixie to overcome her past and find a deep faith of her own? How can Dan stand strong? Sorrow has certainly come for the night, but will there truly be joy in the morning?
What about you? Has God been showing you that life is far more complex than you thought when you were young and idealistic? How did you come to realize that grace and mercy trump legalism and judgment? If you care to share, please do!
Valerie Comer is a USA Today bestselling author and a two-time Word Award winner who writes where food meets faith and fiction. She injects experience laced with humor into her green clean romances. Her life on a small farm in western Canada provides the seed for stories of contemporary inspirational romance. Like many of her characters, Valerie and her family grow much of their own food and are active in the local foods movement as well as their church. She only hopes her creations enjoy their happily-ever-afters as much as she does hers, shared with her husband, adult kids, and adorable granddaughters.
Hi Valerie! Congrats on your new release Dancing at Daybreak. Was thrilled when I saw the email early this morning about her new book and started reading. Thanks for the back story. Since my father did not become a Christian until age 40 – after we immigrated to the states, I am glad I learned about grace at an early age. My German mother’s paternal family was Baptist back to the 1700s; but her mother was kind and forgiving. Living through two world wars and then behind the Iron Curtain. My aunt was divorced. Even at an early age I embraced grace.
As a literature teacher and avid reader, I never realized that authors included “throw-away characters.” Sounds harsh!
Hi Valerie, thank you for sharing- and what a beautiful reminder, through those verses, of God’s grace and His expectation that we show grace. I feel blessed to have had God loving people in my life who have taught me about grace- and demonstrated that grace to me.
Blessings:)
I gave up my idealistic views after enduring a cheating and abusive husband for almost 19 years and finally figured out that wasn’t God’s plan for me. Thank you for sharing.
Wow! These are strong stories to tell. And probably not easy. Congrats and thanks for sharing.
I grew up in a Christian family that emphasized love and grace. So I feel blessed. That was much my dad’s doing because mom grew up with a more black and white view of the world and of God. She shares a lot of stories from before she met dad though (which was long before they dated but he was a good friend).
Valerie, great post! Congratulations on your new release. It sounds like a great story! When I was growing up, I thought everybody just got along. Through maturity and experience, I’ve learned it was more like unintentional obliviousness, not really taking in what was going on around me.
The Lord also had to grab my attention with legalism and it’s trappings. The church my husband and I became a part of has many teachings that lean that way and we embraced the ultra conservative side of that. It took something to get start us questioning and moving out of that church, but it took more years for Him to work through me by throwing a couple situations my direction. I may have gone too far the other direction now, in acceptance, but I do firmly believe and am thankful that He is the judge and I’m called to love everyone, even when I don’t understand.
Hi Renate! Maybe “throw-away characters” is too strong. How about “walk on?” Basically, I thought Dan and Dixie were in Butterflies on Breezes because Linnea needed a family, and I didn’t think they were important to the whole series at that time. I thought they’d walk on, walk off, and be forgotten. Boy, was I wrong!
Blessed indeed to know God’s grace!
I’m so sorry, Lucy. My heart hurts for you, but I’m thankful you got out. (((hug)))
What a wonderful legacy!
Maybe God protects kids from knowing too much when we’re so impressionable! Some kids don’t have that luxury. I’m thankful you and I did.
Hugs on that experience! And yes, while we’re called to discern and make wise choices, we are not called to be the judge. In so many circumstances, I am just thankful the final decisions are up to God. I don’t know how we could show more grace than Jesus who actually DIED to offer His love to those who had spurned it.
Great post!! I have a sister who’s been divorced, and is now a widow. I’ve learned from watching three older sisters go through their relationships with their husbands, and their relationships with their children. Life isn’t easy, and is full of many different people experiencing different things, and I love when books reflect that. I have quite a few friends who weren’t Christians before they married, and some of their husbands still aren’t. I have a few that were, but married men that weren’t, and some of their husbands now are, but some still aren’t. There was one that prayed for her husband for 6 years, and there are some now that pray for them once in awhile, but don’t make it a big commitment to pray for their lost husbands. I think that makes a huge difference!! Also, some don’t put their commitment to Christ first, they let other things come between them and Him, and that also makes a huge difference.
What an interesting insight into your upbringing, Valerie. Thank you for sharing. Personally, I was very – VERY – touched by Dancing at Daybreak, and it is a story that will remain in my heart forever.
Thanks for reminding me how very many scenarios there are. Yes, prayer is a weapon we don’t always recognize for its value. “All we can do is pray” we say too often, as though we’ve already given up on anything working when we’ve just lifted our most powerful weapon.
Thank you. Your comments as a beta reader touched me, too. This story, which I kind of dreaded starting, has turned out to be one of my favorites.
Congrats on the new release! I can’t tell you the people who pulled me aside when I started dating and then got engaged to my now husband. He was ten years older, divorced, and had two children. He had been saved all of a week when he asked me out. Friends told me to run from him, and some even suggest I repent for marrying someone who was divorced. But, 23 years later, those “friends” have had some challenges in their black and white world, and I’m sure it changed them. Looking forward to reading this!
It’s so easy to judge from the “safety” of our ivory towers! Oh, how we all need grace in every aspect of life.
Valerie, sometimes I think that’s the way a writer’s brain works, or maybe it’s God giving us a nudge about what we should write. I know characters that come into my books that I never dreamed would one day have their own story. Or characters that maybe don’t have their own story, but play a pivotal role in the life of the main characters even though I didn’t plan it. And maybe that’s the way of us pantser!
Valerie, congratulations on the new release. Sounds like a wonderful story. Thanks for the great post! We all have to remember we are saved by grace.
I was thinking about your post and started reading Merry Kisses again. It reminds me of a black and white experience and moving into shades of grace and love. Kind of like your post. Then of course there are the characters from Pinky Promise with the whole remarriage story… kind of goes back to this post too. Too many coincidences?
It’s definitely a pantser thing, Merrillee! And hopefully also a God-thing. :)
LOL Priscila! You’re right. Dancing at Daybreak isn’t the first time I’ve poked at this theme! But this time it’s from the opposite angle, I think???
Amen. Where WOULD we be without grace?!?!
It’s not a common theme and not everyone can write and make the angst real and not condescending. I might need to read the new book for more advanced knowledge
I hope you will love Dancing at Daybreak!
Hi Valerie! My upbringing was pretty strict too, and things appeared to be very black and white. However I remember an incident when I was 12-13. A young girl at church had gotten pregnant by sneaking away with her much older boyfriend and spending a weekend together. Sadly, the pastor, parents and church threw the book at them, and treated the whole affair with no grace at all. However some of the church members were unhappy with this stance and broke away from the fellowship, including the girl’s uncle’s family (!) and mine. We began having housemeetings. A year later my family left the area. We heard much later that the young man had eventually married someone else, but had come back to the Lord because of the forgiveness and grace offered by the girl’s uncle’s family. We never heard what became of the girl except that she was sent away to have the baby and to put it up for adoption.
I am so thankful for grace and I believe that ‘There but for the grace of God goes I’, and ‘Let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall’, and the big one: ‘Judge not, that ye be not judged, for with what measure you judge it will be measured back to you!’
My heart breaks for that girl. Was she rebellious? Sure sounds like it. But was that the unforgivable sin? So much no. Pride and legalism keep so many people from seeing Jesus in us.
Thank you Valerie for sharing this post with us Congratulations on your new release Amen to Saved by Grace!
Thank you!
I’ve been struggling with this lately…Pray for me!
I keep reminding myself every day:
Matthew 7:1-5 1″Do not judge, or you too will be judged. 2For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. 3″Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? 4How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? 5You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.”
(((hugs))) Natalya! It can be a hard balance, for sure. We’re to be discerning and wise in our dealings with people. That whole “hate the sin, love the sinner” thing that’s so hard to do. It’s easy to spill over in either direction (hating/rejecting both, or accepting/loving both). Offered a prayer on your behalf.