Grace Among Us

04 - Grace in Response to Anger

July 21, 2022 Carri Adcock and Ebony C. Gilbert Episode 4
Grace Among Us
04 - Grace in Response to Anger
Show Notes Transcript

In today’s episode of Grace Among Us, we’ll respond to a listener’s question, “with the recent shootings in Texas, how do we use grace in response to the anger that shows up?”.

This is and was a tough question and we delve into many aspects of grace, it's timing, and responses to it.

Here’s a glance at the episode

1.    Grace doesn’t always show up immediately. 

2.    Sometimes in tragedy the grace needs to be given personally before we can share it.

3.    Grace allows for a view with love, compassion, and a broader view in the midst of anger and feeling helpless. And to work through where anger is directed.

4.    Grace can show up as a helping hand – what can I do? Nothing is okay about this event, and what do we do with it. Sometimes it may not be a direct action toward those directly affected. However, it can inspire kindness toward others. 

5.    Be curious and pay attention to the people that cross your path. Be curious, others may be hurting. Extend grace.

Thank you so much for joining us today. We hope you're leaving with another pointer to grace, and a new perspective that will light it up in your own life.  If you enjoyed this episode, please let us know at community@grace-among-us.com; we would love to hear your questions, suggestions, and/or comments. Don’t forget to share it with a friend. Also, please be sure to subscribe so you're notified when a new episode is posted. Until next time, be well, be blessed, be bold, and be kind to yourself.

Narrator  00:02

Welcome to Grace Among Us, the podcast where we unearth the many faces and places of grace and share stories of the power of grace in our human lives. Our desire is that this will inspire you to see grace in your own life and share it with others.


Carri Adcock  00:19

Hello, my name is Carri Adcock. I'm a mentor with a passion for showing high achievers how to make space and enjoy the ride so that they can make the impact their heart desires with their life back. And we also have Ebony Gilbert.


Ebony C. Gilbert  00:36

Good day, Carri and others. My name is Ebony Gilbert. By day, I work for corporate America in the healthcare space. And then in my spare time, I get to hang out with you guys and Carri and discuss grace, and how I've seen it showing up in my life, and hopefully how we can point you in a direction where you can see it in yours.


Carri Adcock  00:59

Well, welcome, Ebony. I'm so excited to be here today with you. 


Ebony C. Gilbert  01:03

Likewise.


Carri Adcock  01:05

I am super excited to be here today. And we got a question from our audience. I don't like to judge things, but this is a tough one, so I'm excited. I'm excited to hear what comes of it. So, the question is: With the recent shootings in Texas, how do we use grace in response to the anger that shows up? 


Ebony C. Gilbert  01:41

Ohhh...the anger that shows up. The shootings in Texas that took place at that elementary school? 


Carri Adcock  01:50

That's correct, yeah.


Ebony C. Gilbert  01:52

You know, that's a tough question, Carri. I'm just thinking back to that day when that breaking news hit, and how it made me feel; it broke my heart. And I'm not the kind of person who watches TV and sobs over movies or news stories, but I literally started to cry, probably for the first time in months. And I couldn't control it. And I couldn't articulate the pain I was feeling and the sorrow. I don't know if it was empathy or just anger. I don't know what it was. So when I answer this, I'm going to answer it from the perspective of how I felt in that moment.


Carri Adcock  02:33

Mm-hmm.


Ebony C. Gilbert  02:34

But I want to be clear, it was more than just anger. It was just devastation and sadness, more sadness than anything else. And my thoughts were all over the place. They went to those families who were waiting to identify children who were unidentifiable, and to those teachers and to the people who are responding who had to see all of this, and to the family of the the shooter, and how they must feel--all the different points of pain and perceived failure. It was just all over the place. And grace did not immediately show up in my mind. It was not an automatic of: "This is happening and how do we show grace?" There was no snap of the fingers, there was no magic thunderclap that happened. It took some time; the initial human reaction was sadness and sobbing. And I don't have children, so there was no "Oh my goodness, what if this was my child?" It wasn't that; it was just the magnitude of what kind of hurt in a person causes this kind of hurt to be inflicted on other people. And it was a realization of the type of pain that people must be feeling for so many different reasons. And then eventually, after that series of emotion and questions, I got to a place of "How do we help?" So for me, it came in stages. The first day the grace showed up as "How can I help? What can I do? Do they need social workers, because I can do that. Do they need money? What do they need? How can I help?" Grace showed up in the way of a helping hand, and that's the way I saw myself being able to extend grace. But I needed God to put some grace in me to forgive and to not see this as being a moment of questioning God. I needed some grace in my...I don't want to call it "unbelief," because I never stopped believing, but I was disappointed that I live in a world where this kind of thing happens. And that doesn't mean the universe, because there aren't mass shootings in every country. I live in the world with this type of thing happens weekly and it's part of our news and we're all exposed to it. So I needed God to put something in me, or ignite something or speak to me, whisper to me in a way where I didn't feel so angry--going back to the anger--angry that this is the world I live in. And I'm going to stop there because I need to process and think about this a little bit. We didn't practice this question ahead of time. I need a second because I feel like I'm back in that moment where my heart's racing, and I am just really feeling heavy with this type of thing. But, just to reiterate, I needed God to put something in me before I could even get to a point of forgiveness, grace. I needed to hear something directly. It didn't naturally erupt out of the grace volcano that dwells within. It did not happen. What about for you?


Carri Adcock  06:03

Oh, my goodness. Yeah, I absolutely get that "being right back there." My body...I'm kind of sweating right now with this question. I appreciate you taking it on to start with because as you said, we do not rehearse this. This is in the moment, much like grace. When I heard about it, the very first question was: "Why?" Even before the emotions, it's like, "Why did this happen?" And I know for myself that "Why?" is not a spiritual question. Because even if I was given the reason, it doesn't change it. It doesn't change what happened. I do have a child. And it was good to hear that it's not about having a child or not having a child. This is an atrocity that makes me want to cry right now. And to your point, to be able to be curious--if that's the word--be curious about the hurt and the suffering that was in that young man that allowed him to follow through on something like that. It breaks, it breaks my heart.


Ebony C. Gilbert  08:00

Yes, it's heartbreaking.


Carri Adcock  08:02

How do we have a world where someone is so disconnected? Because--and this is a personal belief--that is the absence of God. That is a person who is so disconnected from grace, God's love, any of it that they would even get to a place to be able to carry that out. Yes, the grace volcano was nowhere near me. 


Ebony C. Gilbert  08:48

[chuckling] It didn't just erupt out of your soul?


Carri Adcock  08:52

That was not my go-to. Sometimes these things that are so far from just believing that it's even possible, gives me a very good look at how grace operates. Because it's not a given. It's not a given that grace is going to show up and my heart's going to be able to see the situation with any love or any understanding or...I just wanted to run. And it's only with grace that I could even consider the family of that young man, the parents of these children, the parents of the children who survived, because that is a whole other...they have been touched by something that no parent, no human, should be touched by. And then the idea of: "How can I affect this?" And the anger of" "I have no idea how to affect this. I feel hopeless. I'm pissed off, why would anybody have to go through this?" And that's back to the "Why?" 


Ebony C. Gilbert  10:49

It's difficult to look at it. For me, it's difficult to not get into a judgmental zone, because I don't want to judge. So I had to separate the act from the person because I don't know the person. The act is evil. It's pure evil. The behavior was evil. It  hard to call it a mistake, because it happened repeatedly. It's hard to classify and in a way that can come out with love. It was evil. Now I don't know the young man, don't know all the details that led up to it. But the act itself was evil. And it helped me to call a spade a spade and just say that, because when I'm trying to find God and something and there's no God in that act...now, God will use all things for good, and he'll work it together, but some things are just bad. And this was just bad. And the more time I spent trying to find something else out of it, the more frustrated and angry I became. So I had to get to a place where I could try, in my best way, to classify it, I had to find a way to bucket it. Otherwise, that anger turns in directions I don't want it to go to. I don't want to be angry and God, so I had to figure out a way to get to that place.


Carri Adcock  12:13

You just made a point that if I'm angry at God, I've got to shield up for grace to even show up for me.


Ebony C. Gilbert  12:28

Right. And it's not hurting God; he can handle it. You're putting this shelter around yourself, where you can't receive, you know? And that's never the space I want to be in.


Carri Adcock  12:47

And if I ask, "Why?" if I want somebody, something...essentially when I ask, "Why?" I want something to make it okay. And to your point, there's nothing okay about what happened. There's not one stitch of okay. And so, from a worldly perspective, to put it in a bucket of not okay. 


Ebony C. Gilbert  13:21

Not okay. 


Carri Adcock  13:23

Nothing okay about this experience, about this event, about any of it. And what do we do with it?


Ebony C. Gilbert  13:41

You know, I think it gets into the question of another question we received: The relationship between grace and action. What do you do? What action are you moved to? I know, for me, in the following days after that event, I became super sensitive to people's pain. If someone--and it didn't always look like pain, Carri--someone's ranting, and they're being nasty to me, and I'm like: "You're hurting and we should talk about it." And then I was able to operate in grace and possibly--I'm not saying I'm deterring the next mass shooting, who knows? But you don't know what you're intervening, you don't know what your intercessor moment represents. You never know. But for the following days--and it didn't last forever because I got lazy--but initially, I wanted to know, I wanted people to know that I was praying for them, and that I see you, God sees you, he hears you, he loves you. He wants you to bring your burdens and your cares and your concerns and all your hurt, so you don't have to act out in a way that's violent, harmful, that doesn't represent who you are as God's kid. I wish I could do that every day. I wish I was in that space every single day, not at the risk of having tragic things happen to get there, but life gets in the way sometimes. But for the the immediate action was to be concerned, and to immediately become My Brother's Keeper. And to immediately lend out a hand to say: "I can listen, I can show up, I can hear you, I can help you. If I can't, I can find someone who can." And those were the immediate actions I took. I wish I did more. I wish there was something else I could have done. I wish, I wish these moments of being compelled to do those types of things didn't just happen after tragedy. I wish Congress was talking about gun laws, not just after a bunch of kids get shot, you know?


Carri Adcock  16:10

I do. I do. It's that reactionary grace.


Ebony C. Gilbert  16:16

Mm-hmm. Oh that's a good way to--oh, good God! Good one, Carri. Good one.


Carri Adcock  16:23

Yeah, yeah, I wish so, too. And I appreciate that you said, "It didn't last forever." Right? This is the beautiful aspect of us being human. I don't know, I wish I could set grace and forget it. Right? "Set it and forget it," whoever that guy was, that cooker guy. Ron Popeil. That's the guy. Another aspect of grace is it's not a "put a quarter in the machine and you got it." Right? It's a consistent, it's an up-and-down relationship, and it's really based on how open or closed I am to it. And, for whatever reason, tragedy often is like a mass opening. Because we remember that we're all connected. And that emotion, I don't know how it does it to our hearts. I don't know. Our nature is to have one big tribe. And when these things happen, it's like...I don't know how to explain it.


Ebony C. Gilbert  17:43

Uh-uh. It's a connectivity, you know?


Carri Adcock  17:45

Yeah, yeah.


Ebony C. Gilbert  17:48

 Like how we're all connected.


Carri Adcock  17:49

And I love to hear the action that came out of it was to see the pain of others. I invite anybody out here who's listening to that that can relate, to be curious and pay attention to the people that cross your path. You may be having a crappy day, but they may be, too. I have a thing--I'm going to go a little off topic but not really because it just came up--I have this thing about people honking.


Ebony C. Gilbert  18:44

The horn? 


Carri Adcock  18:45

Yes. I don't like it if somebody honks behind me. Sometimes I am zoning out and the light has turned green, right?


Ebony C. Gilbert  18:59

Are you that person, Carri?


Carri Adcock  19:01

That sits at a light? Not often.


Ebony C. Gilbert  19:05

You're that person?


Carri Adcock  19:06

Yes, I have been that person, Ebony. I'll admit it. Wow, I totally lost my horn train of thought.


Ebony C. Gilbert  19:17

If you're that person sitting at the light, then I'm behind you honking the horn. I'm doing my five-second countdown. 5-4-3-2-1. Now you get the horn...


Carri Adcock  19:27

That's it! Okay.


Ebony C. Gilbert  19:29

...because I gave you five seconds of grace, and you didn't move.


Carri Adcock  19:31

I'm back. So that horn goes, and grace is out the window. I am angry. I'm upset. It should be at myself. There is no godly reason, Ebony, that you should have honked that horn.


Ebony C. Gilbert  19:31

But I gave you five seconds of grace.


Carri Adcock  19:39

Exactly, but that is my reaction and it's grace that calms that down, right? So I may have somebody who's not very nice at the store who's checking me out, and I can be curious instead. I can be curious about why is this person so prickly I'm going to practice that this week. I appreciate that. I'm busy and people are honking at me, and I don't like it. And that's just all not true.


Ebony C. Gilbert  20:42

I've got to tell you, I never use my horn, never, because I, too, think it's a little rude. But when I have to, I have to. And the only times I've ever used it is when I felt like I was in danger, a car was simply coming towards me. Or, I had to be somewhere. "Listen, I am already late, which is not your fault, it's mine. But now you're going to make me two or three minutes later, even though this is only a ten-second interaction. In my mind, I'm going to be five minutes later, because you waited an extra 20 seconds. And I need a little grace in that moment because I'm not my best self and you're in the way of my progress."


Carri Adcock  21:25

It's not your fault, but you're making it worse.


Ebony C. Gilbert  21:28

You're making it worse.


Carri Adcock  21:30

You're making my stuff worse.


Ebony C. Gilbert  21:32

The fact that I've had a terrible morning. Just tying it all together, you never know what the other person is dealing with. You never know what got them to that place. You never know what pain or what suffering or what happened. So get them in that spot and I think that's how grace shows up. Because when you think about it, how many times does God grace us with our with our mess-ups and our stuff and our things? And his grace is sufficient. It's all we need. We don't need more than that. So if it's sufficient for us to receive from him, doesn't it just seem right for us to extend it to others? 


Carri Adcock  22:13

Yeah. Yes. 


Ebony C. Gilbert  22:19

It's like our reasonable response.


Carri Adcock  22:23

That's the beautiful thing about grace, too, is as I receive it, and I share it, it doesn't diminish how much I get to receive. In fact, it might even multiply it.


Ebony C. Gilbert  22:40

Yeah, it's the ripple effect? 


Carri Adcock  22:42

Absolutely. 


Ebony C. Gilbert  22:47

I don't know how profound or how great our answer was to that question, but I think it's very real. My takeaways would be, sometimes it just doesn't happen immediately. The grace volcano doesn't always erupt on demand. Not in the way we think it should, at least, but sometimes it can show up as empathy. It can show up as filling the heart of people who are going through things and then, in stages and steps, God will guide you to the next thing should be. He'll lead you in the direction you're supposed to go; just ask for it. But some things are just bad, they're bad. 


Carri Adcock  23:35

Mm-hmm.


Ebony C. Gilbert  23:36

You don't have to do mind trickery to try to convince yourself that something bad is good. Sometimes things are just bad.


Carri Adcock  23:44

Yes, and they go in that bucket.


Ebony C. Gilbert  23:47

But it does not negate our responsibility to still show up as kingdom kids and show grace. 


Carri Adcock  23:55

Absolutely. 


Ebony C. Gilbert  23:56

Our responsibility never goes away.


Carri Adcock  24:00

No, ma'am. 


Ebony C. Gilbert  24:04

This was heavy. 


Carri Adcock  24:05

This was heavy. And I'm so thankful to Dorothy for asking the question. So, to all of those listening, we'd love to hear how you would answer this question if you want. Also, any questions you have, send them in, because we'd love to hear those as well. So, Ebony, I know you wrapped it up very succinctly. So, I'm good on my end.


Ebony C. Gilbert  24:49

You know I'm going to think about this for like the next four hours. I'm going to just sit here and ruminate on all the answers I should have given and all the things I should have said.


Carri Adcock  24:58

Well, we might have part two; we'll see, or some notes about it. I'm actually headed out to go be in the world and I'm going to go get real curious about being sensitive to where other people are, so thank you


Ebony C. Gilbert  25:23

Do it for more than four hours.


Carri Adcock  25:26

I'll do my best. Yes, I can. I can do that. I can do that for the week.


Ebony C. Gilbert  25:31

I'm going to try it a little bit more as well.


Carri Adcock  25:34

Okay, watch out for the grace volcano, though.


Ebony C. Gilbert  25:38

And I'm going to make sure that when the light turns green that I go. Just drive, so no one honks the horn.


Carri Adcock  25:49

Right.


Ebony C. Gilbert  25:51

Thank you, Carri. 


Carri Adcock  25:52

Thank you.


Ebony C. Gilbert  25:53

Thank you, Dorothy, for the question.


Carri Adcock  25:56

All right. Until next time.


Ebony C. Gilbert  25:57

Grace out.


Narrator  26:02

Thank you so much for joining us. If you enjoyed this episode, please let us know. We'd love to hear from you, and share it with a friend. Also, please be sure to subscribe so you're notified when a new episode is posted. We hope you're leaving with another pointer to grace, a new perspective that will light it up in your own life. Until next time, be well, be bold, be kind to yourself, and be on the lookout.