“It’s easy to give grace to other people, but it is
very hard to receive it for ourselves”. These are the words of a good friend of
mine as he processed the very human struggle of receiving grace. To receive
grace, we have to begin where we feel shame. Shame is different from guilt.
Guilt is: I have done something wrong and
feel bad for it. Shame is: I am something wrong and I
feel bad for it. All of us know this place of shame to some degree or another.
Yet it is here where healing begins. Shame is the same energy that Adam and Eve
felt in the garden story when they realized they were naked. Grace begins where
shame shrouds. The question is, “How do I receive grace in that place where
shame shrouds my beauty?”
The problem with the grace is that it doesn’t
change what is. Grace redefines what is. In our Western culture of fixing the
problem, redefining can seem like semantics. U2 in the song “Grace” states that
grace makes everything beautiful. We feel drawn to this idea but we have a hard
time receiving it in those places where we feel shameful. We can perceive God’s
grace for another person when someone tells us of something terrible they’ve
done, thought or held onto. It is possible for us to see their beauty through
their shame. But grace comes to life when we can see our beauty through our shame. We can receive grace when we
stop trying to change ourselves by force. We can receive grace when we
recognise and embrace both our shadow and our glory.
When you release yourself from the power of shame,
which drives most of our perceived bad behaviours, you become liberated to be
who you are. Here you become permeable. Change becomes possible when you no
longer resist yourself, but receive yourself. You can’t receive yourself through
force. You can’t receive God through force. We live, feel, breathe, be. Nothing
can be forced. As soon as you force something - you have forgotten grace. If
you try and force yourself to become better, you have stepped out of grace. If
you try and force yourself to be kinder or holier, you have stepped out of
grace.
Grace receives, then it creates. The mystery is
right in front of us, all of the time. Reception creates. The seed is received
into the ground, then God takes over and life is created. Grace is only ever
about reception. Once it is received into the soil of our lives, whatever it
creates is God’s mysterious work of love in us, through us and for us. Grace
cries out to everyone for reception, even me. Just for today, and hopefully
tomorrow, I will receive - without fear - all of me and trust that God is doing
something beautiful.