I talk a lot about grace here on the blog and in my writing. It’s even in the working title of my first novel, Good Graces. It’s easy to talk about when I’m telling others about it’s healing powers, the way it can bring peace to you life. We can’t deserve God’s grace, it’s freely given. How wonderful. That’s the pretty version. The easy to package up and deliver version.
As is the case with many who claim a position with or affinity for a word, phrase, quote, I cling to grace because it’s what I yearn for most. I repeat the message of grace because I need to hear it every day, a reminder that I am worth enough to God to be saved. I should keep going. Today is one of those days, friends.
Why I Need Grace Today (And Every Day)
Much of my internal struggle revolves around my weight. I have been overweight most of my life. A few years ago, with the help of a popular points-system weight loss program, I lost over 60 pounds. I felt in control, accomplished. But over the past year or so I’ve gained back some of that weight. It’s left me feeling defeated.
My relationship with food is the monkey on my back, my cross to bear. Being overweight is not a sin in and of itself. But I believe anything we allow to replace God in our hearts, even a very little bit, can be a roadblock in our faith journey. What’s more, in addition to dealing with poor body image, I also take on the guilt associated with overeating. I think of how many of God’s children around the world have too little to eat. And here I am using up more than my fair share. The voices in my head are tiresome and unkind.
Today, in particular, the voices are loud. I leave in a few minutes for my annual exam. I will step on the scale and my weight gain will be recorded in my chart. The voices in my head will be loud and unrelenting. My doctor is kind. She will notice, but she will not condemn. I do that enough on my own.
I need Your grace, today, Lord.
Encouraging Words About Grace
Maybe these verses and quotes will help you as much as they’re helping me today. I pray these truths will quiet the voices inside me, and maybe inside you, and replace them with the joy grace creates in its wake.
My grace is sufficient for you for my power is made perfect in weakness. — 2 Corinthians 12.9
By the grace of God, I am what I am. — 1 Corinthians 15.10
For it is my grace you have been saved, through faith — and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God. — Ephesians 2.8
For sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace. — Romans 6.14
I do not understand the mystery of grace – only that it meets us where we are but does not leave us where it found us. — Anne Lamott
I am not what I ought to be, I am not what I wish to be, I am not what I hope to be, but by the grace of God I am not what I was. — John Newton
Teresa Tysinger, Author 
What a brave, honest post!
Extending oneself grace, the grace we would freely give to other, can be so hard! We would happily execute ourselves, sometimes for transgressions for which we would mildly reprimand another.
I know; I’ve been there, and in a sense I AM there, still caught in the gyre of combat twenty-five years past.
I suppose it’s because we have the gnosis of what’s going on inside our own heads; we need not give ourselves the benefit of the doubt.
It’s easy to say that Christ already gave everyone the benefit of the doubt, that He redeemed the sins, large, small, and even those faults we elevate, in our minds, to the status of cardinality.
True enough, but those are mere words without an action plan to put them into practice. I’ve not yet found mine!
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Andrew, thanks for the thoughtful reply. You’re so right on the mark. That “action plan” you mention is the crux…and part of what we’re striving for here on this side. Blessings, friend.
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