Grace for Nobody

Kevin and I at a tri in 2005.

On Friday Kevin and I rode our bikes to attend the Tempe Art Festival. We locked them to a bike rack and walked around for two hours. When we got back, our bikes were gone.

After standing around with a sick I can't believe this happened to us feeling, we found an officer who came to take our report.

After giving descriptions, the officer had a few questions:

Did we have the bikes registered? No.

Did we have the serial numbers recorded? No.

Did we have receipts? No.

Did we have photographs? Yes.

We walked away knowing that the chances of ever seeing our bikes again were very slim -- right up there with finding a snowman in the Phoenix area at Christmas. And even though we had used our bike lock for over a decade, I walked away wishing we had used a GIGANTIC lock to secure our property.

So to say I was surprised on Sunday afternoon when the Tempe police called to say they had our bikes would be an understatement. They ID'ed the bikes from a piece of paper they found in one of my bike pouches. On it I had written my name and address in case I was ever in an accident.

Who gets their stolen bikes returned? Almost nobody. And without serial numbers and registration? An even smaller group of nobodies.

Suddenly, we found ourselves stumbling into a grace moment.

Grace -- something freely given and undeserved.

A grace moment. It's not planned. It's not on a to-do list. It's completely unexpected. We didn't find it for sale at any of the booths at the art festival because grace isn't like that.

It's not given because you are smart enough or rich enough or talented enough or because you remember to write down serial numbers.  Grace can't be grace if it were dependent on any of those things.

Grace is free. It's undeserved.

It's not from buying super-duper locks to keep the bad guys away. It's sometimes given even on days you feel like an idiot. Or a nobody. In fact, I think grace is especially given on days like that.

So what do you do in a grace moment?

Maybe you will want to do what I did.

Simply bow your head and say, Thank You.

A special thanks to Officer DeCourval, Officer Bulson and Officer Fougner for their assistance.