Grace Under (Extreme) Pressure

Let me sum it up for you: Grace — I don’t have it. Well, at least not outwardly. Not the kind of grace that shows up in the fluid movement of a dancer or the effortless courtesy of a good hostess. Certainly not the kind of grace Jesus’ mother Mary had, which was a complete freedom from sin. The kind of grace available to me (and to all of us) is pure gift, the redemption we receive only from God.

We give grace when we forgive one another. But it’s hard to bestow that kind of grace, hard to say, “I forgive you” without adding, “even though you’re essentially a bad person/ a selfish swine/possibly a criminal/not someone who deserves my friendship.” Grace doesn’t judge. It’s rather like mercy in that way, dropping “as the gentle rain from heaven / Upon the place beneath.” Raindrops don’t choose where to fall. And if we want to be Christ-like, we can’t pick and choose where our grace falls either.

I’ll admit it’s a struggle. Lucky for me, grace is also a prayer. Maybe not this kind, but still — praying might get me there.

I was not built for grace.
It fits me ill,
a hair shirt at once too small
and dangling from my shoulders.
Still, I’ll have the mastery of it.
I will practice the fastening of buttons,
repeat the words until I mean them.
I will work at grace as at a puzzle,
trying the pieces, searching for a fit.
Perhaps the picture will never be clear,
but I will accept it as it stands, with holes
and jagged bits, unfinished but enough.
I will rain grace, fertile as a heavy cloud,
no matter how the stony ground accepts it.
But first, I must fill myself.

Summer ✅ Checklist

1. ✅Summer Tick Check

Okay, kids. When you come back into the house after playing in the yard, shake out every piece of clothing you’re wearing to check for ticks. Turn it inside out. Hold it up to the light. Look in the mirror. Check every fold of skin. Turn around. Feel with your hands. Clear? Good. Oh, wait! Your hair! Run your fingers methodically through your hair. Cover every inch of your scalp.

Phew! That was close. Nobody wants to catch Lyme Disease!  Nobody wants something hijacking your head. Sticking its spikes into your skin. Infecting you with a dread disease that changes who you are. Sucks the life out of you. Stops you in your tracks. Puts your life on hold.

2. ✅Summer Skincare Check

Sunscreen on or the trip is off. Down the shore, that sun can really do a number on you. Searing into your skin. Causing you pain. Creating lasting damage. Could lead to cancer, which could be fatal.

3. Summer Psyche Check

Crickets…

Meantime, that cruel comment from your father bored into your brain and still comes up when the sad sets in. Meanwhile, that thing that happened when you were a child that they said don’t speak of to anyone reverberates in your life decades later. Changes you at the cellular level. But there’s no think-tank studying how to stop it from metastasizing. Only platitudes and placebos: stiff upper lip. Soldier on. 

Worse yet, there are the naysayers. Are you sure that happened? I don’t want to be skeptical but, you were so young. Maybe you were mistaken? 

No. It happened. And the pain you feel is real, but it’s a relic that has calcified into a stumbling block you still trip over.

You can release it. You don’t have to make your mind a mausoleum of dark days.  

You free yourself by excavating and examining said past pain this way:

Did I deserve this? Did I cause this?

No.

Why did no one stop it? Why did no one help me?

I don’t know.

Am I worthy of the good life has to offer? Is my life important?

Yes.

Shake off the debris of memory and walk your mind into the sacred space at the center of your soul.

Check yesterday off your list. Say yes to today.

Let the wounds heal into scars. Let the scars lead you to tend to other people in pain, healing both of you in the process. Don’t resurrect the past now that it’s laid to rest. Don’t give it power over how you feel by poking it and picking at it, revisiting and reviving it in perpetuity. Don’t give old pain new life. Address it fully and release it to make way for new Grace Gifts: joy, peace, love.

Be in this moment. Let tomorrow form into what it will. 

Life is good.

God is good.

All is well.

✅Check.