the rest of the story

I have to admit it–I loved to listen to Paul Harvey.

Last Wednesday at XStream, I wanted to illustrate grace–getting something that you don’t deserve, don’t earn, etc.  So I started to ask for a volunteer, and a young lady (Maddie) raised her hand before I could finish the sentence.  I stopped mid-speak, and asked her if she really wanted to volunteer.  Her hand dropped.  I finished the sentence, and Nate raised his hand.  I walked over to Nate, pulled him to his feet, put my arm around his shoulders, and gave him a $20.  He was flabbergasted, as was everyone else in the room.

“Nate, did you earn this 20?  Do you deserve this 20?  Did you work for this 20?  Do I owe you this 20?”

Nope to all the above.

But to show you that sometimes we get things that we don’t deserve, I want you to have this 20.  This is grace…

I could tell that most of the students expected that I’d ask Nate for the 20 back at the end of the talk, but he got to keep it.  Pretty cool illustration and investment of 20 bucks.

But the next day I got a phone call from a mom, who wanted to tell me the rest of the story.

listen to this

At the end of XStream, Nate walked over to Maddie, handed the 20 to her, and said, “This is grace…”

Maddie was blown away. She told her mom as soon as she got in the car to head home. She said that now it was her turn to pass grace on to someone else, and that she was going to put the 20 in the offering at church Sunday.

Now isn’t that a cool story?! I love it when teenagers do something cool…

What have you seen that made you stop and say WOW lately?