Is necessary because life is complicated. Because people are complicated. Family systems are complicated. Cultures and societies are complicated. Circumstances are complicated. Our inner selves are complicated. The unexpected twists and turns of our individual stories getting tangled up in the twists and turns of a million other people’s stories is complicated.
Grace doesn’t try to untangle everything. Grace is not a scientific analysis of the chemical makeup of that explains why life has ended up the way that it has. Grace is not theological or metaphysical explanation that forcibly imbues meaning into every moment. Grace doesn’t lie to us by convincing us that everything bad is going to actually be good in the end.
No. Grace simply walks alongside us, alongside us, through all the ups and downs—cursing the valleys and slowing down along the mountain ridges. Grace calls things as they are and accepts things as they are. Grace changes whatever is possible to change, and bears whatever cannot be changed.
I like this definition of grace:
“Grace is God acting in one’s life to accomplish what one cannot or will not do on one’s own.”
Dallas Willard
I like that because, quite often—as the saying goes—I just can’t. To which grace replies: Maybe that’s not such a bad thing.
