I know that I have talked about forgiveness in one of my previous posts, but you may have to go back a while ago to find it. I am going to talk about something very similar, but is kind of different at the same time and that is grace. On the first and third Sunday of every month I work at the Live Oak Unitarian Universalist Fellowship Church in Alameda, CA where I help with child care services. We tell stories right before we go to our classroom. This one focused on grace. There was a girl who went to the beach with her dad. Her dad gave her money to go get ice cream. On her way back she fell and dropped the ice cream on the pavement. She went back to her dad and her dad said to go get another one. She did not have any money, but her dad said to ask for another one. She went up and explained to the woman that she dropped her cone, could she get another one. The woman gave her another one.
The moral of the story is explained in this quote I found as well. “There is nothing more classy or powerful than showing forgiveness and grace to someone who does not deserve it.” So for example, like in the story the girl received grace although she did not deserve it. The moral is not only to give grace, but to also receive and accept as well, especially in today’s world. In other words, we have to make room for grace in our hearts because we need it. There is too much cruelness in this world, so we need to be accepting, especially of people’s mistakes and imperfections. I feel like grace, especially receiving as well as giving it, is what makes the world go round. I feel like there would a lot more anger and misunderstanding if there was not any grace at all. When people think of grace, they automatically associate it with religion, especially Christianity, but you do not have to be religious to believe in grace. I just wanted to point that out, especially since I am a non religious person myself.
The whole point of this post is to tell people to open up their hearts. I encourage everybody to do that and to forgive, as hard as it may be, especially if they really hurt you. I want everyone to give grace, as well as receiving it with open arms. Isn’t that what we want to teach the next generation? They look up to us and the best thing we can do is to teach them to do the same. I am posting this right around Thanksgiving because it is that time of year to think about grace, although we can do so much more of it year round. There are many definitions of grace when you look it up in the dictionary. This is one that stood out to me. “The exercise of love, kindness, compassion, mercy, favor; disposition to benefit or serve another.” We should show grace because it is our duty as human beings to do so. There is so much more to say about grace, but all that I have talked about sums it up. I just want to leave you all with one more quote. “Grace changes everything.” I think this quote shows how important grace is. I will leave it at that. Here is a poem to enjoy by yours truly. Enjoy and happy Thanksgiving in advance.
Everlasting Grace
Darling, I always want to live with grace
And forgiveness in my heart even when
The apology is not given. I am in a place
To be living and starting all over again.
Darling, I have been in a place of being
Able to accept everyone’s past mistakes.
I am no longer running away or fleeing
From the pain and hurt. Someone flakes
Out on you or will make you really mad,
And you make the best out of it, no matter
What happens in life. Nobody can be a bad
Person willfully. We have all made a splatter
And a mess out of things in our highly flawed
Ways. You keep your grace from going numb.
You have always broke, fought and clawed
Your way through life, so do not let some
Messed up situations take you back to where
You were before, another place of being
Unwilling to ever accept the idea of
Forgiveness. However, you are now seeing
Things differently, including grace and love.
