Brandon Clements

Friday I got a nasty black eye.

The wind was blowing hard, and when it does so at our house it often catches our storm door on the front porch, blows it open like a tornado, and knocks this bench off of the porch.

It happened on Friday and the bench broke after falling off the porch. So I decided to go outside and fix it. On the way out, I heard Kristi say, “Brandon, wait…” I knew she was going to tell me not to fix it. But I’m a man, you know, and I wanted to fix it.

So what did I do?

I pretended that I didn’t hear her and kept walking outside. I went around the porch, picked up the bench, and started to put the screw back in.

Right at this time, Kristi naturally came outside to tell me not to fix the bench because she was going to throw the piece of junk away.

But…as soon as she opened the storm door, guess what the wind did?

Yep.

It caught the door. And I mean it caught it. I have no idea how non-hurricane winds can make that thing move that fast.

I looked up right in time to hear the whoosh of the door and see it slam into the bench.

But not in time to move before the bench slammed into my eye and knocked me on my butt.

Oh, it hurt.

And after Kristi made sure I was okay, she laughed. I mean, you kind of had to. I’ve been telling people that it was kind of like a scene from Final Destination, except thankfully I didn’t die.

It was funny, I have to admit it.

But I’ve been thinking about how I’ve changed over the years and how God has grown me. I swear, in high school I would have been absolutely convinced that God gave me a black eye. It was what I deserved for ignoring my wife. It was punishment.

True story: in my senior year of high school, we lost a playoff football game that we were supposed to win. And I was convinced that we lost because I had done something wrong the week before.

I mean convinced. For years.

But I don’t think that way anymore.

And I think that is grace.

Because the more I have grown to know God, the more I see Him as a loving father. I realize that He does discipline His children like Hebrews 12 says, but in a loving way and not in an “I’m out to get you” kind of way.

Like a conversation I had with someone recently, where they said that they were always afraid to respond to God because they thought He just wanted to punish them. That He was waiting with a hammer and an anvil. And I got to remind them that instead He was on a cross, taking the hammer Himself so we wouldn’t have to.

I don’t think He was standing there on Friday with lightning bolts in His hand saying, “See what you get when you ignore your wife punk!”

No.

I think He was slapping His knee, sharing a very good-natured laugh with me and Kristi about the ridiculousness of it all.