“You’re the most forgiving person I know, Sarah.”
We walked back to the car at the end of our hike. Our conversation had centered around writing, around blogging and around friendship in the way that only two women bloggers can chat while they are exercising together.
“I mean you are. You just seem to be ‘okay’ with it all.”
“Thank you.” It’s hard for me to accept compliments.
Big Grace comes with big cost, I think. “God’s taught me so much about grace in the past few years, Liz.”
I could switch gears here and launch into my story, you know, the BIG one, the one everyone goes back to in their own personal testimonies. Mine is about my own marital unfaithfulness and my own journey back toward God.
I could. But I think I’ll use that as an undercurrent to explain what I’ve come to understand about the Big Grace that I’ve come to live inside.
First of all, Big Grace is a journey. It’s a bit easy to extend grace to friends who cancel coffee dates. Or who say they don’t have time to hang out and then I see their face intstagrammed all over Twitter with different friends in different locales around town. It’s even become easier to extend grace to the people I love the most: my daughters, my husband, my parents.
But what really skews my grace-lending is when I see someone who stands in the face of forgiveness. Who hurts and manipulates, who ruins hearts and souls, who steals innocence or who abuses. Those people are hard.
And they make me hard too.
But Big Grace is a constant journey into humility. Into introspection. Big Grace is a path I walk down, a destination that is always on the map, and I’m content on that road because I have great driving music.
Big Grace also comes with cost. Sometimes showing Big Grace means that I lose friendships. It means that I am not first in line. It means that people step on my toes.
It means that I allow my heart to feel the full weight of being slighted, looked over, looked past and forgotten. Big Grace’s cost is that sometimes, I choose to be last.
Big Grace is a result of Big Grace received. Even Jesus said it in so many words: Who has received much love will also love deeply. It’s because I’m grateful. It’s because I know how easy it is to drift into pride. It’s because I know what it feels like to be alone, waiting for the Grace that hasn’t arrived yet.
That I’VE BEEN THERE on the end of Big Grace when I didn’t deserve it and when I’d spent years trampling my way through the grace of others.
So maybe I’m a tiny bit more forgiving than I should be to friends who slight and to people who forget. But I think I’d rather live on this side than on any other side.
What about you? Have you experienced Big Grace? Do you feel that you can easily extend it to others?
I praise God for helping me submit to His will through life’s fiery trials and extend to others. And I thank Him that through His Big Grace and power, it brings out the best and heals the worst in me. I refuse to call them not forgiven; because of His Big Grace extended; forgiveness happens and problems are transformed into triumphs! A great pre-Easter blog! Especially time with family brings His Big Grace!
I have experienced BIG GRACE and can extend it to others in a BIG way, sometimes… I’m know, I felt like a weenie typing it. My flesh is as big and I’m asking God for help on that one.
This was beautiful. I love your writing. I had to extend Big Grace to my husband from a deep hurt 3 years ago. Through that trial, I also learned to extend grace to our families. However, I also realized that I had become bitter towards others-people that are rude, neighbors that aren’t nice, just people in general outside of my family. God now has me on a journey teaching me to extend Big Grace to anyone. It is painful at times, but I’m thankful. I don’t want to be bitter.
Thank you for beautifully sharing your heart. I have always been the person who has quickly shown Grace, but there has been one issue in my life that I am striving to show BIG GRACE. But I know I serve a God who will meet me and help me.
“Big Grace:” I like that, Sarah! Last week, my priest spoke to us about “Big Jesus,” and I have been trying to wrap my ahead around life’s journey of late. . to think it might lead to “Big Grace!”
It seems that everywhere I turn peoLe are writing about grace. On every blog I follow, Grace is being written about. I wonder if God is trying to tell me something. Hmmm…
I recently read that GRACE is free to the recipient, but it is ALWAYS costly to the giver. Just a thought to go along with yours…
Great post Sarah. This goes along with the book I’m reading right now – Revealed by Tamera Alexander.
I think this is the nicest compliment ever. To be the “most forgiving person I know.” Not sure if my friends and family would say that about me.
It is funny. Grace has been the theme of my life lately. Having only recently truly discovered God’s grace it is something I now want to wear on a sandwich board around my neck. To know that I am TRULY forgiven from even “that” sin, brings a peace I am still figuring out how to process.
It is also amazing how God shows his grace to us. My cousin and I recently sat in a coffee shop for our every other Saturday coffee date. I decided to confess to her my biggest secret. It was coming out in a blog post so she should know first. She reads my blog.
I figured she would walk out. I figured it would take her some time to forgive me.
Instead, she cried, and told me how she had come to find God’s grace – and how I could too.
It was her outpouring of grace, and her knowledge of God’s grace, that has taught me such a lesson, and given me the tools to extend grace to others. No matter what.
Thank you for this post Sarah.
i am still trying to figure out how to give grace…perfect grace in complicated, messy situations. i can say i am forgiving, but my heart still feels the sharp, jagged edges of stone. i often wonder, how can i give grace and move forward, when the circumstances requiring grace have changed me so much? then i remember it’s not really my grace. it’s by His grace. aren’t i just passing a baton? and yes, sometimes grace means restoration, but other times it means separation. separation so that others can flourish and breathe. i feel the cost of grace.
and really. to give grace i just need to remember, right? remember the deep flood of grace that suffocated me and left me breathless, asking “who am i that i should be forgiven?”…that big grace – it’s the kind that changes lives. i know because it changed mine.
Hard situations. Repeated hurts. I’ve had to learn that forgiveness can be extended, but not always granted. Boundaries are healthy to have. My husband reminds me that if the Father showed people their own sin all at once, some people would be so broken. In grace, reveal it to them kindly. Love them wholly. And by all means, extend grace. I’ve found that the wounds inflicted by those closest to me are the ones I wish I could fix the most, and that hurt the deepest. I’ve had to extend forgiveness knowing it will never be asked for, and set up boundaries. It’s difficult. At times I’ve been tempted to make excuses for others, or blame myself. But I also know that isn’t what forgiveness is all about. It is a journey into His love. It is a choosing daily to forgive in the face of hurt. I’m still learning grace.
Sarah, I can personally say I know this about you because I have experienced your graciousness. I hurt you once a long time ago, and even then, before you learned the depth of grace you know now, you had grace on me. It amazed me then, and I have always loved you for it.
i love you girl. so much.
and i miss you. wish you were still here at the beach. =(
Thank you so much for living Big Grace. I can tell by all your friends who know you and share here about you.
There is something that He does for me with it, where I don’t even fully realize at the time when someone is trying to hurt me, and I just extend it. Like a naive little bimbo. ha! But it works. And later, I feel the pain of what they did, but I’ve already given grace in the face of it, and He is there to comfort me and pick me up again.
Thank you for showing us about grace. These are lovely lessons!
thank you debbie =)
I too am thankful for BIG Grace overwhelming me…and the way that has allowed me to share it. My family has been transformed. Thankful for your example. With Joy, Carey
it’s like you said sarah – those have received much will be given much.
it would be hard for me to understand Big Grace if i wasn’t overwhelmed to tears over Big Grace i know jesus has extended to me, effortlessly. freely. doesn’t hang it over my head later. just…gives…before i’ve even asked…i just have to…receive.
i love how you can talk about it without pride, too. because you know how little it really has to do with you and everything to do with the Big Grace-giver.
so beautiful, sarah. someone suggested on my blog yesterday that i talk more about my understanding of grace, my heart’s message. no reason why i wouldn’t just point them straight to here instead.
xo
wow. thank you mkt =)
I just love you.
Yes, I have experienced Big Grace. I can relate to some being easier to extend grace to than others…it is a journey…I agree…
Sarah, you have great insights into the needs of those who have been hurt, and those who hurt. Big grace… nice term. Sometimes even after a decade or more, the hurts surface, triggered by surprising events, words, actions. And then it is the inner struggle of grace… extended, for myself and for the other person. We never outgrow the need for grace, God’s undeserved favor. Thank God He is God and His grace is greater than anything we say or do, even greater than our own memories.
[...] Big Grace – Another great piece that reveals the heart of God towards us, which should in turn help us position our hearts towards others. [...]