Perhaps Grace Is What We Need Right Now

Hmm. Grace has always been a hard concept for me, at least the Biblical kind. As a person whose spirituality didn’t fit in with the Father God concept, I never felt the “grace” in the “Amazing Grace” song. I was more of the “chasing grace” kind, I guess, as in one of my favorite songs, “One Good Year,” which I listen to often:

Just give me one good year
To get my feet back on the ground
I’ve been chasing grace, but grace ain’t so easily found…
by Slaid Cleaves and Steve Brooks

Maybe you would like to listen to it. I just happen to be able to show you both of the writers’ versions. I guess if I don’t know what grace actually is, I can graciously share some music about it. Um. Okay.

Being Graceful

I do have a clue what physical grace is, and that’s what I put in my Instagram of the day. I was really impressed that Chris made a routing table out of stuff there was around the Pope Residence project, then got Randy set up making beautiful curved edges for all the trim. Next we have to mass paint it all, before installing.

I’ve been thinking harder and harder about what the heck grace actually is, because I think I’d like to both send and receive it. It seems to have to do with love, acceptance, and kindness, I think. I finally broke down and looked at Google to see what it was about. I still am not real sure about Divine Grace, but I did see a list of ways to exhibit grace, which is shortened from a blog post with a lot of helpful Bible verses, if you would like to see them.

That all sounds like good stuff to me. I am right now concentrating on 7 and 8. I’m trying to speak kindly to people who think getting infected with a scary virus is a joke. And I am remembering to be very grateful to still have work, be able to see at least some of my family, and live in a place concerned with safety.

Safety?

Our county judge has echoed the governor’s state of emergency recommendations and told everyone in the county to stay the heck home unless you have a workplace to go to, need food, or have to do something urgent. People had been being a bit jerky around here, apparently not grasping the concept of invisibly carrying a disease and passing it on to someone else, the fact that diseases have incubation periods, and that sort of thing.

I’m one of the people glad he did this, even though I had to go to the auto parts store today, because my windshield wiper broke. I didn’t want to die driving in the rain with no wipers. So, I was careful. Mainly I was VERY impressed that the store had my car’s wiper blades!

What else is there…I’m ready for a virtual meeting this evening, and hope to hang out on Zoom with online friends a bit, like I did last night! What fun that was. I’m grateful that the pandemic came when we have lots of online tools for connecting. Is that something you can actually be grateful for?

Postscript

I’m glad I asked for guidance on this topic. My friend from high school, Vickie Dixon, kindly shared her definition, which was helpful to me, and may be to you!

Grace is one of my favorite words. And it doesn’t have to have anything to do with religion. Although, for me, it’s a lot easier to give grace to others when I remember God’s grace given to me. It’s basically just treating each other with love even if they don’t seem to warrant it. It can’t be earned and none of us truly deserve it. We all hurt each other. It’s part of being human. Grace comes in when the person we hurt still treats us with love. A beautiful, and very difficult, way to live.

Vickie in North Carolina