Un-Grace...then Grace...

Amazing isn't it in life that from incidences of 'un-grace', moments of grace can spring out and surprise us. Around eight years ago his white man remembers well a pitiful young teenage girl stepping out onto one of the most famous sporting stages in the world, Melbourne's Rod Laver arena. She was playing a first-round match in the 2001 Australian Open Tennis Championship and she was jeered on the court by a stadium full of rabidly outraged Australian spectators. The reason for their grievance? Jelena Dokic was a naturalised Australian of Serbian background, but because of her father, his irrational logic and a number of ridiculous outbursts against the Australian Tennis Association, he dictated that his daughter denounce her Australian identity and revert to Serbian nationality. And Jelena bore the brunt that day, on the court and in the media, of an Australian public venemously unforgiving of any person who would dare turn their backs on all the opportunities they had been afforded in this "lucky country" and as a parting gesture of 'appreciation' figuratively spit in this nations face.

Much has happened between then and now. A confused and controlled teenage girl grew into an independant woman and severed ties with the family influences that made her life miserable. She battled with depression, lost her passion for tennis and slipped in her world ranking. As a result, when again she was in the news prior to this years Australian tennis summer, people had every reason to wonder with interest what Jelena Dokic would bring to her again, adopted homeland of Australia. And last night she arrived back at the 2009 Australian Open Tennis Championships and for the first time since the nightmare of 2001, strode out onto centre court probably wondering what would happen this time. What happened? Grace happened! Sure Dokic won a great match over her 18th seeded Russian opponent but in this white man's opinion, the greatest moment of victory happened after the match. A once-hostile crowd now cheered and embraced Jelena Dokic and brought her to tears. That moment was truly momentous and Jelena herself acknowledged that regardless of what happened for the rest of this tournament or beyond, she would never forget this moment. Why? Because this moment in time wasn't about tennis, it was about a moment of grace. In that young woman's life in that one moment, this white man sensed that tennis itself was an irrelevance. What really mattered was that a once un-graceful incident had been totally put behind her and that now, in grace, Jelena Dokic could finally move on into a place of contentment.

And that's what life is all about. Moving from moments of un-grace to grace. God, the grace giver desperately wants all of His children to live in wholeness and fullness, enjoying the reality of grace everyday. And He reminded this white man again of this unchanging principle using a tennis court to teach me. From ungrace to grace...totally amazing!