This Day Is A Grace

Sometimes I forget. I wonder, why? Why dont you help? We are here, trying, working. Trying to make do. Trying to love. Trying to hope and help each other. Trying to work and trying to be free. Trying, trying, trying. Effort is nothing. It takes us nowhere. Effort is for the karma-believers, the humanists, the haters. Some believe that effort wins. Sometimes I believe it too.

But really, I know better. I know grace.

I know grace because I read about a family that lost their baby, the one born with the broken heart. And then I read about the family who has their sweet daughter, the one born fifteen weeks before she was supposed to. And I hear, and I see, and I know. Effort does not matter. God does. Grace does.

This day is a grace. I want to beat my fists at this window, on this table. I want to cry and heave and weep. Life is not fair. You do not always get back what you gave. But then - what did I do to get this day? This day that is a grace? It was not mine, I did not make it. I did not work it into being. This day was crafted in splendor and with colors that rival the sunrise over a glassy, mountain-circled lake. It was written with glory and glow, purity and passion. Yet it did not happen the way it was written. Because many, many, many days before this one, a choice was made. A choice that shrouded this day with a veil. We can see dimly, yet we still do not really know. We do not fully see. But their are hints. There are hints of grace.

And when I want to shake with sobs or bend in sorrow, I remember that this day was never mine, nor was anything in it. Instead of instinctively clenching and shaking my fists, I pray I will someday intuitively open them. I will open them and let the gifts of grace, in their joys and in their sorrows, fill them up. I can hold them tight because they are from a Giver. A Giver who sees beyond this day and who sees through the veil.