Giving Grace

The idea of giving grace seems to be pretty deeply ingrained into our American psyche. If someone “does us wrong” we are often encouraged to “just let it go” or “give them a break.” I think that is most often good advice. Giving someone else grace distances us from the situation and provides the ability to not take any actions which are made against us so personally. If we don’t give grace, or some other synonym, then all to often we can find ourselves the victim of anger, anxiety, or unhappiness as we let our feelings get the best of us. It is easy to take a perceived slight which happens against us and allow it to ruin the whole day. For example, how many times have you been cut off in traffic. If we refuse to give that driver grace then we can act out at them, chase them through traffic and even carry our anger with us throughout the day. All of this happens as the perpetrator, in most cases, doesn’t even realize that they have cut us off. In this, and I would argue, most cases, it is better to give people grace and go about your business.

However, this type of giving grace is not what I had in mind when I imagined this post. I was thinking about how much grace we give ourselves. When we don’t live up to our, or someone else’s, expectations are we willing to give ourselves grace? How about when we do something that we KNOW we shouldn’t do, are we willing to give ourselves grace? What about when we tell ourselves, “this time will be different” as we enter a situation where we have failed in the past and we fail again, do we give ourselves grace then? Sadly, speaking from my own experience, I can say that most times I do not.

Somehow, where I find it relatively easy to give grace to others I find it very difficult to give grace to myself. Sometimes I tell myself that I am letting others down and that by giving myself grace I am giving myself permission to fail in the future. Or perhaps I tell myself that I should know better and not put myself into certain situations where in the past I have failed. Maybe these are good excuses. However, just like not giving grace to others, not giving myself grace keeps me thinking about my failures, often far after they have taken place.

I wonder if you would consider, in place of being hard on yourself or beating yourself up, giving yourself grace. I wonder if you would consider telling yourself, “I did the best I could in the situation that presented itself and if I could’ve done better then I would’ve done better.” Is it possible for you to let go of your failings, just for the moment, and instead give yourself grace. If you can give yourself grace, it may be possible for you to experience new insight into your situation. Giving yourself grace allows space in your mind for new insight to appear. Now this doesn’t mean that by giving yourself grace that you aren’t noticing what you have done or are looking for ways in which you might improve the situation if you are confronted with it again.

Just like when you get cut off in traffic, the situation may occur again and you may or may not be able to give grace to that driver. However, I feel certain that when you experience situations where you do fail, giving yourself grace will help you move along the growth path instead of stalled by the side of the road playing the blame game.