Searching for Grace - Five Minute Friday

Today I'm joining a cool prompted-post link up at Lisa-Jo Baker's Five Minute Friday.  The point is to take her prompt and write for five minutes and then publish.  Today's prompt is "Grace".  Here I go...

What is Grace?  It can be a quality of a person or it can be a gift.  Today I discuss the gift...

According to the Christian teachings as I understand them, Grace is God's gift to all those who accept his love and follow Christ.  Grace is a gift given to us with no tags attached, you simply have to accept it.

Grace is the ultimate gift; the gift that says no matter what you've done, no matter what you've endured, no matter how you've slid into the place you are, YOU ARE WORTHY OF THE ULTIMATE LOVE!

So, my thought is, how can we live with grace for the world around us?  How can we bestow this same sort of loving forgiveness to all the mangled, damaged, hurt people around us?  And maybe even more important:  How can we bestow this same kind of love to ourselves.

Non-judgmental, completely pure and without needing to be earned...we all deserve GRACE, regardless of our religious beliefs.  Grace isn't just a Christian concept.  It's a universal concept.  The idea that we all deserve to be accepted and loved for who we are right this minute.

Forgiving everything that has come before...

I struggle with Grace...

I struggle to accept it.

I struggle to bestow it on others.

I struggle to have it for myself.

I need more Grace in my life.  We all do.