Not for the first time and not for the last, I am feeling the painful repercussions of my past vibrate into the present. I am looking into a very deep, old wound that I've avoided forever.
What is this pain? This wash of emotions?
I'm told it's grief, but that word feels like the scratchy, black-and-white version of the vibrant reality.
Yesterday, I told my therapist there was a hole inside me. "I think it's been there my entire life," I said, and it's true. It seems as if this emptiness has always been there. I've never dared to see it before, but now I'm teetering at it's bottomless brink.
I asked her, "Is that how everyone is? Do we all have this... emptiness? Does it ever go away?"
She said, "In my knowing, that hole will be filled with grace."
Grace.
What does that even mean?
A tinge of hopelessness washed over me. How can I fill the emptiness with something I don't understand?
This morning, I need to know. I have to know what grace is and how, exactly, a vague religion-tinted concept can fill up the empty place inside me.
I want more than a simple verbal definition, but I Google it, hoping for answers.
According to Websters:
Grace
a : unmerited divine assistance given humans for their regeneration or sanctification
b : a virtue coming from God
c : a state of sanctification enjoyed through divine grace
That third part leaves me with a furrowed brow. It’s hard to take seriously any definition that uses the subject word in the description of the word. I suppose “c” is saying that grace is not only the gift but also the state one enjoys upon receiving the gift... but what exactly is the gift?
b : a virtue coming from God
My mind cries, “Define virtue! Define God!”
Then my more knowing, inner-self says, “Stop trying to describe wood and take a walk in a forest.”
So I close my eyes. I walk through that brief sentence with my soul open wide until the path takes a surprising turn.
What if grace isn’t a gift in the sense that something new is bestowed upon us?
Maybe grace is the realization of something that’s always been there.
Yes, I think as I step more confidently onto the new path. Grace could be an awareness of the divine within. A knowing that everything is always okay because that which we most crave and need has always been there and can never be taken from us.
I little ripple of excitement washes over my skin. I'm on to something here.
a : unmerited divine assistance given humans for their regeneration or sanctification
These ego-feeding, heady words fall flat in my brain. I return to the forest and continue my journey through the essence of grace, stumbling over that first word. Unmerited? That seems to indicate that there is some requirement that hasn’t been met, like a child who misbehaves but gets dessert anyway. It makes it seem as if grace is a gift given to the undeserving... but... aren't we all deserving, all the time?
Yes.
That's it!
We are each pieces of God and God is within each of us.
God is love. Love is God.
This is the image in which we were created.
We can’t be given what we already have.
We are made of love!
We can’t earn it and we can’t lose it and we can’t ever be undeserving of it because it is what we are.
So... when they say divine assistance they're talking about... a reminder.
Yes.
Grace is a gentle nudge and a finger pointing to the reality that we are love and love is all and nothing else matters.
It is that still, small voice that whispers, "This is who you are. You are love. You are always within me and I am always within you and it is only when you forget that you feel loss."
So I come to see grace as a soft caress of the soul; a gentle rush of well-being; the sweetness, lightness, connection and wholeness that can fill the seemingly bottomless hole inside me and holds me together when it seems the world wants to tear me apart.
No issue is too large or too small to be dazzled by the shining light of grace. Without our troubles we could never come to understand our own true nature. Thus, everyone and everything who has ever caused us pain brings us the gift of grace and is made of that same essence of love.
And so,
c : a state of sanctification enjoyed through divine grace
would be the state-of-being one has upon remembering.
And in this moment, I remember.
What is this pain? This wash of emotions?
I'm told it's grief, but that word feels like the scratchy, black-and-white version of the vibrant reality.
Yesterday, I told my therapist there was a hole inside me. "I think it's been there my entire life," I said, and it's true. It seems as if this emptiness has always been there. I've never dared to see it before, but now I'm teetering at it's bottomless brink.
I asked her, "Is that how everyone is? Do we all have this... emptiness? Does it ever go away?"
She said, "In my knowing, that hole will be filled with grace."
Grace.
What does that even mean?
A tinge of hopelessness washed over me. How can I fill the emptiness with something I don't understand?
This morning, I need to know. I have to know what grace is and how, exactly, a vague religion-tinted concept can fill up the empty place inside me.
I want more than a simple verbal definition, but I Google it, hoping for answers.
According to Websters:
Grace
a : unmerited divine assistance given humans for their regeneration or sanctification
b : a virtue coming from God
c : a state of sanctification enjoyed through divine grace
That third part leaves me with a furrowed brow. It’s hard to take seriously any definition that uses the subject word in the description of the word. I suppose “c” is saying that grace is not only the gift but also the state one enjoys upon receiving the gift... but what exactly is the gift?
b : a virtue coming from God
My mind cries, “Define virtue! Define God!”
Then my more knowing, inner-self says, “Stop trying to describe wood and take a walk in a forest.”
So I close my eyes. I walk through that brief sentence with my soul open wide until the path takes a surprising turn.
What if grace isn’t a gift in the sense that something new is bestowed upon us?
Maybe grace is the realization of something that’s always been there.
Yes, I think as I step more confidently onto the new path. Grace could be an awareness of the divine within. A knowing that everything is always okay because that which we most crave and need has always been there and can never be taken from us.
I little ripple of excitement washes over my skin. I'm on to something here.
a : unmerited divine assistance given humans for their regeneration or sanctification
These ego-feeding, heady words fall flat in my brain. I return to the forest and continue my journey through the essence of grace, stumbling over that first word. Unmerited? That seems to indicate that there is some requirement that hasn’t been met, like a child who misbehaves but gets dessert anyway. It makes it seem as if grace is a gift given to the undeserving... but... aren't we all deserving, all the time?
Yes.
That's it!
We are each pieces of God and God is within each of us.
God is love. Love is God.
This is the image in which we were created.
We can’t be given what we already have.
We are made of love!
We can’t earn it and we can’t lose it and we can’t ever be undeserving of it because it is what we are.
So... when they say divine assistance they're talking about... a reminder.
Yes.
Grace is a gentle nudge and a finger pointing to the reality that we are love and love is all and nothing else matters.
It is that still, small voice that whispers, "This is who you are. You are love. You are always within me and I am always within you and it is only when you forget that you feel loss."
So I come to see grace as a soft caress of the soul; a gentle rush of well-being; the sweetness, lightness, connection and wholeness that can fill the seemingly bottomless hole inside me and holds me together when it seems the world wants to tear me apart.
No issue is too large or too small to be dazzled by the shining light of grace. Without our troubles we could never come to understand our own true nature. Thus, everyone and everything who has ever caused us pain brings us the gift of grace and is made of that same essence of love.
And so,
c : a state of sanctification enjoyed through divine grace
would be the state-of-being one has upon remembering.
And in this moment, I remember.
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