Cultivating Middle Age Wisely: Grace

A couple of weeks ago, a lady came to our home regarding our little 87-year old's recent move to Assisted Living. She had the pleasure of meeting my mother briefly before she left.  When I spoke to Cindy the following day, she commented how beautiful my mother was, and how happy and peaceful she looked. Then, she made this statement about her, using her hands to emphasize what she was about to say: 

She just… radiates...oh she just radiates grace!

For some reason her statement struck a chord in me.  Not that I didn't know that my mother radiated grace. In fact, I often lovingly call to her and say, "Hey Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee!" Her name is Mary, she truly is full of grace and if you knew her story, you would know the Lord truly is with her!  It amazed me that a total stranger could see so clearly in a matter of less than five minutes what we see emanating from her daily! So, when I talk about cultivating grace, this gives a real-life example of how it is possible to cultivate grace to such a degree that it is evident to others.

Defining Grace

What comes to your mind when you think about grace? Is it Divine pardon? God’s unmerited favor? Divine assistance? Is it the little prayer of gratefulness you say before meals? Is it just being nice? Is it merely elegance and beauty in movement and form? Is it an allowance of extra time to pay a bill?

Personally, I thought for years growing up that it was my nickname. I was a clumsy child, so every time I tripped over that pesky piece of lint, stumbled over my own little feet, or ran in to something accidentally, my family would say, "There goes Grace!” Later in life, I did my legal internship with a Christian sole practitioner whose business motto was Practicing Law with Grace, so everyone that walked into the office thought they were being clever by asking if I was Grace with whom he practiced law. Everybody wants to be a comedian.

But really, what is grace and how do we cultivate it? Well, I could spend weeks giving an exhaustive exegesis on Christian theology and the manifold meanings of  Divine grace, and truthfully we would barely scratch the surface.  However, the grace I had in mind for this post is more along the lines of social grace. I dare say though, that the two are very closely related as you may well see. If you would like to read an excellent, fully understandable exposition on the Christian theological view of grace, I highly recommend a book by Philip Yancey titled, What’s So Amazing About Grace?