Oh to Grace How Great Debtor...

While growing up, "grace" was simply a term used in hymns and sermons at church but meant very little more than that. I could define it without a bat of an eyelash, a textbook definition, if you ask me or anyone who knew me then. Until 5th grade I knew nothing personally of any significance attached to any spiritual term. While in 5th grade, my family stopped going to the Church of Christ and begin attending the Wesleyan Church in town. One of the first sermons I heard there was taught by Dennis Jackson and included in the message was this quote: "While mercy is the holding back of something that is deserved, grace is the giving of something that is not deserved." I scrawled it in my notebook I carried around with me, tore it out when I got home, and put it in my top dresser drawer. Every morning I would look at that slip of paper, intrigued by the quote, but not yet understanding it.
As the time wore on, I found myself praying regularly for grace. My life had quickly bloomed into something I had never imagined and something that needed desperate grace and mercy. While mercy sounded lovely and was certainly well appreciated, I needed something to fill the empty spot that was supposed to be filled by what was being held back by mercy. I prayed for grace because it gave me something.
Though selfish, I learned a lot through those nights. I began to feel comforted and loved by my Savior. He forgave me every time I asked and he gave me exactly what I needed: Grace; what I didn't deserve. For ever situation that called for it, he gave me precisely what was needed.
I quickly found that grace was not something that was only meant to be received, it was also meant to be given. I used to think that I had received grace from God to be able to give to others and for the most part that was true. But I was giving grace through God, not necessarily because of him. Where would we be without grace, without the giving of that which we don't deserve? We would be hallow shells, attempting to live this life to the fullest but failing disastrously if we had been given no grace.
God gives us life and breath. He gives us passion and compassion. He gives us love and the ability to carry out the love that he has given to us. Are any of these truly deserved by humanity? Yet they are given anyway. Grace, given to us though not deserved...

I guess grace in the "graceful" dancer sense of the word is also something that is given to clumsy and klutzy people... as someone I know says, "Dancers are graceful until they stop thinking about where they're putting their feet."