The past five years have taught me that grace is easy from behind a screen. It’s easy to write about giving and receiving grace. Grace is easy when you stay tucked away from real-life, face-to-face interactions. It’s easy to be a champion of grace when you can simply delete, unfollow, or block anyone with whom you find it difficult to share grace. I know this all too well.

It’s been almost three years since I declared these words: I won’t back down from the grace that’s been given to me. Yet that’s exactly what I’ve tried to do.

It became too difficult to continue to graciously accept grace when I found it too hard to extend to others. Receiving grace while drawing boundary lines on who I’d share it with created an inner tug-of-war.

I didn’t want to be the hypocrite who wrote about grace but couldn’t live it, so I thought it best to deny it altogether.

Still—STILL—as much as I’ve wanted to deny the grace that’s been given to me, I cannot. It’s as if the Grace Giver has said, This is my gift to you. What you do with it will not change the fact that I will keep giving it to you. 

That, too, is grace.