Over at sheloves magazine everyone seems to have a word of the year. They all seem so exciting and adventurous. Fearless! Leap! Roar! They are big and bold and active.

And my word for this year, my word is grace. I have known it since New Years Eve. This year is all about the Grace of the Lord. Resting in it, admitting that I am not good enough, trusting that the Lord’s grace covers the rest. Accepting grace from others in the form of a surprise cherry-limeade, a message on facebook that what I write matters, an email exchange from women I really only know through their blogs, or dinner I did not have to cook or pay for. It is hard to accept help sometimes, even harder to ask for it.

I am also learning a whole heck of a lot about extending grace. To myself, to my family, to my friends. Grace isn’t grace if it is only extended when someone deserves it. That isn’t grace at all really. My self-centered form of justice says that if I was wronged in anyway I deserve to withold grace. Forget that forgive us our sins as we forgive those who have sinned against us thing, I want to see someone truly repent first.

How many sins would be left still clinging to my being if the cross only covered the things I am consistently repentant for? Too many to count, more than I am aware of I am sure. And yet, that grace was extended anyway. I am learning (slowly) what that means to give grace freely, because I still believe what I expressed earlier this year Grace gives people the freedom to move on, the space to do better. It allows people to move past where they were and move to where God calls them to be.

In some ways I am jealous of those women with big active words for this year. I am the kind of person who leaps before I look, roars with the best of them, charges ahead and hopes that it will all work out it the end. Those are all things I am good at, they suit me. But those are not my words this year. The word of my year is grace. And grace is less of a one time big action, or an attitude, and more of a day to day discipline, a moment to moment surrender. And I am learning to give myself grace when I fail…..at grace…. Goodness gracious!