There’s a certain high-octane grace that only shows up when we’re being squeezed—like really squeezed. As long as we’re holding onto the steering wheel, as long as we think we’ve got another card up our sleeve, as long as we’re still trying to worm our way out or think our way through—that potent grace eludes us. We are in the way.
It’s when all our tricks have run out, when the unthinkable has happened, when we’re waist deep in the unimaginable, when we’re crying on the kitchen floor at 3 a.m. and we’re not sure the sun’s going to come up in the morning or ever again…that’s when it happens.
When it’s too big to hold, too heavy to carry, too hopeless to fix. We finally let go. We finally give in. We finally hand it over.
That’s when we open in spite of ourselves and the big grace comes in. That’s when mercy comes in the form of a prayer whispered on salty lips wet from tears. That’s when we stop, to the sound of the fridge humming, exhausted from crying, too tired to keep resisting, that’s when we feel it. It’s subtle at first. And then it takes over. A quiet.
A calm so calm we stare at the ceiling and utter a sigh so deep that the earth itself feels our relief. That’s the big grace. The grace that says—I’ve got you. When you don’t think you can go on. I’ve got you. When you don’t have the answers and can’t see a way forward, a way out, or a way through.
Grace whispers—I am the way.
I’ve always been the way. You were too stubborn, too rigid, too arrogant to let me in before. You’ve been treading water your whole life. Grace is here now. It’s time to lean back and float. Let yourself be carried on the unknown and the unknowable. And in that radical surrender you come home to peace, to truth, to rest. In the eye of the storm you are the still center.
You finally let go and let God.
