“Of His faithfulness we have all received, and grace upon grace.”  John 1:16

“I do not at all understand the mystery of grace—only that it meets us where we are but does not leave us where it found us.”  Anne Lamott

Grace has been foremost in my mind, and my life experience lately. How about you?

How would you define grace? Following is my attempt.

Grace is God’s Love in action in the form of mercy, kindness, forgiveness, generosity, and hospitality that is put into practice by everyday people.  Grace is the Loving God with skin on.  Grace is the humility found in humans to love and accept others, not as we want them to be, or think they should be, but as they are, and to do the same for ourselves.  Like us, grace is a precious diamond in the rough.  Grace is believing that God really does love us just as we are and doesn’t demand or command that we try to be something or someone else.  What matters when it comes to Grace is the love of God The Giver, not the actions, attitudes, or aptitude of the receivers.  Loving grace comes disguised in the dirt, the grime, and the grit of our lives and the lives of other people just like us.  And it is quite likely that the very elements of our lives that we consider most shameful and feel most guilty about serve as the receptacles into which gracious love is poured, and from which we pour the same grace and love out upon others.  God’s grace is a gift, not a transaction.  There is nt quid pro quo associated with grace.  It is given without manipulation and void of any expectation.  We don’t have to do something more, give something extra, or become someone else in order to illustrate our worthiness in getting grace, or gratitude in receiving such a loving gift.  Grace is the heavenly cornucopia from whence all the compassion, care and kindness of God commences.  Grace is the headwater from which Christ’s streams of living waters flow.  Grace is the fountain of lovingness from which we are tenderly invited to drink to our hearts content.  Grace is freely poured into the cracked pots that appear as our lives so that we can in turn help to fill the leaking cisterns in the lives of others.  There’s an endless amount of God’s loving grace, so we don’t need to hoard it or be stingy about distributing it.  God’s grace is the gift gained and garnered by Christ and gifted freely and abundantly through The Spirit.  But here’s the thing about grace; at the end of the day, it can’t be adequately described or defined.  Grace, like the love of God in Christ Jesus, must be experienced.

When have you experienced grace? For yourself? It is perhaps the only effective antidote for guilt. What guilt has eaten away at you like a cancer, distorting your gaze of God, disrupting your view of yourself, disaffecting your perspective of other people?

When have you experienced–and shared–grace with others? Granting them the gift that you yourself have been given?

How do you live in, with, and into grace?