Perhaps it’s ironic that I’m a Christian who hates giving grace, but perhaps that’s why I am one – I suck at it and know I need all the help I can get.
Well, perhaps I don’t hate giving grace as much as I hate receiving it. After all, as someone who’s worked her way up to captain of her state-bound soccer team, salutatorian of high school, and the first person from her area to attend undergrad at an elite East Coast academy, I’m not used to having things handed to me. In fact, I take it as a source of pride that I’ve had to work for everything I’ve ever done, because I wasn’t as smart or skilled as everybody else in the room. I put my nose to the grind because things didn’t come as quickly for me as it did for others, and eventually my hard work surpassed those who had all of the talent in the world yet didn’t know how to do a day’s hard work for the life of them. And this became a well of joy within me, a trophy I kept to myself, unafraid to dust it off in front of anyone who dared underestimate me, and a standard I set for myself to always not just work smarter but harder than every other person in the damn room, which became a core part of my identity.
So let’s just say I think giving grace to others is fine, tolerable even, but when it comes to me, no thank you, ma’am; I’ll just take my usual shot of driven espresso, merci beaucoup.
Yet with my work ethic and never-complaining attitude, oftentimes people expected more of me and held me to unrealistic expectations, even above themselves, a teacher once telling me that after I told a boy who cut in line to move it, “Hey, I didn’t expect that from you.” As if I was the adult in the room. As if I wasn’t allowed to have feelings or to be human. As if good girls weren’t allowed to have voices of their own. Perhaps this is why I have such a hard time offering grace to myself – because it was rarely offered to me as a child. As Jesus said, Let the little children to me, for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven. God knows the child in all of us that needed a little grace yet received none, and He pours out His cup for us, allowing us to be satisfied for what our souls ached for for so very long.
Funny how one moment as an adult can bring us right back to that small, scared child. That moment came in the middle of the night for me, two a.m. covered in a cold sweat with tears streaming down my face upon a realization that almost certainly had wrecked my GPA. I felt like a failure, for through every hurdle in life, I’d always been able to work myself out of it and maintain a pristine finish. Until that night. Until I couldn’t on my own. Ashamed and sobbing, I whispered to my dad what I had done, and he just held me, wrapping his loving arms around me as all of my fears came tumbling out, some audible, others only for the Lord to hear and understand. And maybe it was the tactical touch after four months with no family or maybe it was the stillness of that long winter’s night, but somehow I heard a whisper, “They would have loved you if you had never got into Georgetown.” And I knew it to be true.
It doesn’t make sense in a world that demands one pulls themselves up by the bootstraps or the ingenuity of the flickering and failing American Dream, because I can’t work for it. It just is. This grace, this mercy that reminds me that God accepted me long before Georgetown ever did, on the basis of no merit, no standardized tests, no essays, just grace. And that is why it’s home. Because it’s the place where I belong, no strings attached, and the place where God has asked me to come just as I am. Grace is not an excuse for all of our mistakes, but rather a gift from the Most High because God never expected perfection from us. God knew we would blow it big time and wanted us to know that we’re not a failure. We’re human, and even with all of our many, many imperfections, God breathed life into us. Divine flesh and bone. Fully breathtaking and alive by the only thing this world can’t explain away – grace.
As we enter this new year, may you cast off your past mistakes, old habits, and past self. You are brand new, made whole, and set free from bondage to past traumas by the mysterious, ever present gift of grace.
Last Love 