Grace

The only fight I can ever remember being in was in high school at the Skyvue Drive-in. It was a drive-in at the corner of Park Ave. and Pendleton. The Skyvue was old and rundown but it was our home away from home. Four of us practically lived there at night whether we were getting paid or not. It was THE place to be if you went to Messick High School. At least that's what we thought. It burned to the ground and the land was sold years ago. But 3-4 of my buddies and I worked there...if you want to call it work. Mostly we just hung out in the box office which was a 6ft by 6ft box made mostly of huge plate-glass windows. When someone drove up, one of us would go out and collect their money (and usually check their trunk to keep their friends from trying to sneak in).

There were 4 of us standing around one night and a 5th guy opened the door and instant mayhem broke out. 5 guys in that little glass room wrestling around...In the process, somebody got pushed through the glass window.

Nobody wanted to take responsibility because nobody wanted to get fired, so we swept up all the glass, put it INSIDE the box office with a brick, called the police and insisted that a disgruntled customer had thrown the brick thru the window. Those cops looked at us as if to say,

“Do you guys really think we’re that stupid? What REALLY happened?”

Sworn to secrecy, we all said, “That’s our story and we’re sticking to it.”

The owner came in the next day and grabbed the first guy to come to work and took him into his office (which was pretty intimidating because none of us had ever seen the owner's office) and broke him. He sang like a canary. He vehemently denied that he had any part. And we were all busted. I'm not gonna tell you any more than his first name which was Ronnie.

Amazingly, nobody lost their job but we sure deserved to get fired. Have you ever done something that you deserved to get in bad trouble for and somebody let you off the hook? That’s called GRACE. Grace is when we get what we need and not what we deserve.

If you're in that spot right now maybe you need some grace. It's yours if you want it. Remember, if you're lookin', there's always hope!