Let's All Have A Little More Grace

Grace is such a beautifully challenging word, isn't it? It's that thing we all hope the world around us will willing give to us, yet it's the thing that we find so difficult to extend sometimes. 

I've read a slew of articles and blogs on "What not to say to a person who..." in the last year or two. While some of them have been enlightening with a point or two, most of them come across as whiney and demanding that people get it right. Yes. I just said that. Somewhere in our demands of being understood, we lost sight of having grace for the person who loves us dearly and is trying their best. 

I didn't really get that until Carter was born with his cleft. It sunk in even deeper when we received Charlotte's diagnosis. People have come around our family in the most beautiful of ways, they have loved us well. So so well. Yes, there have been comments that cut and there have been those who were a bit too casual with our pain. They are not the people that I am talking about. There will always be those people. The ones who just don't care to understand exactly what it feels like and for those people, they probably do need a little lesson in "What not to say..."

I'm talking about the friends and family that love you, want to ask questions, want to be there for you, but they just dont know how. So maybe they end up saying the thing that hurts today. Maybe they tried to love in a way that didn't quite do it for you.

There's a saying "You don't understand someone's journey until you've walked a mile in their shoes." That quote (I maybe ad-libbed a little) couldn't be more true. However, the point remains. Sometimes people are doing their best and the words they speak or the actions they do come from a lot of love and compassion. 

Instead of slapping their hands in passive aggressive blogs that tell them they are getting it wrong, let's all look past how those actions and words didn't quite measure up to what we thought we needed and start extending grace because the message of their hearts is exactly what it should be. They love us and they want to be there with and for us.