Finding Grace in Life's Challenges
The passage of time always fills me with two experiences; that of nostalgia and reminiscence and the acute awareness that we are always moving forward. Life is never the same twice. Even if we revisit a space with the identical group, the way life has molded us over that passage of time in between has changed our imprint.
Some years are easier than others, some can even be “non-descript”, but some can be profound. They can change you in ways that you did not expect.
They can be the loss of someone precious to us, the learning of something hard that we didn’t know, or a complex diagnosis. The list is vast.
I think that the key to growing and having life stay rich is to accept the experiences with understanding and grace. I listened to a podcast recently about the book “big friendships”, which is a book I have yet to read but is cued up on my Kindle- and I cannot wait to start. But this book reflected on the fact that our society has no real platform for valuing friendships.
Our society values coupledom and marriages, and parenthood and family, but it does not make enough room for the value of friends. The author of this book, Aminatou Sow, used the expression over and over giving grace.
Internally staying present with the fact that the world is different for every person going through it at any given moment, and we must allow for these differences.
When we feel angered by someone’s absence, or even their behavior, we must give grace for what their experience may be.
This phrase, though not new, struck me differently in her voice. It actually gave me grace. I think that we all must work at giving grace to others as well as ourselves. We must better accept the difficulties of the world without beating ourselves up, or judging others for how they are managing.
In my experience, giving grace is the ability to believe that people are simply doing the very best they can, and recognizing that sometimes it may not feel like enough.
Perhaps at this moment life is far from where you had believed it would be? The pieces of the puzzle are not aligned exactly right? It may be, then, that right at that very moment it is most essential that we give grace. To ourselves and to others.
To believe that intention is for good, and that with some time, water and sunlight the grass will grow again. It always does.
Lean on your people, your big friendships, to help when times are harder, acknowledge to yourself you are trying, you are doing the work. Do not double down and cling to what went awry, but let experiences fertilize the soil in order to move ahead differently.
Most importantly- give yourself grace.
Life will stay in front of you, whether we are clenching and taut, or graceful and spacious. As hard as it may be, allow the grace in, so you can allow yourself to feel the light. Say what is true.
Do as you must, but do it with consciousness and awareness that you are doing the absolute very best you can. That intention, in and of itself, is grace.