Palpable Grace

It happens all the time. We have these days, weeks, stretches of time when so much goes wrong we don’t know how to make it right. When we’re so far outside our comfort zone we don’t even remember what it felt like anymore. You and friends/family pray for each other, but you do wonder where it’s all going…

What doesn’t come along very often is a day in which everything seems to go right. I had one of those yesterday, out of the blue, traveling to visit my Dad. Everything went beautifully all day, with flights and connections and all that goes with airline travel. Itself a minor miracle. Weather, perfect. Flights, peaceful, calm and on time. Another feat. Time for rest and contemplation, pulling away from work and plugging into family. Time for talking more with God.

Arriving in beautiful New England, I sensed grace. A perfect stranger paid a remarkable compliment for no other reason than that he noticed…something…about my demeanor. I breathed deep of the clean New Hampshire air, soaked in the sun on the evergreen forests and winding rivers, and realized that this was palpable grace. It came from those prayers.

I thought about those bumper stickers I’ve seen in the past that say “Grace Happens.” About two minutes later I saw a license plate on a car in front of me that read “GRACEB.” Hmm…. I thought about how we can only appreciate these moments of Divine Providence when we are ‘still’ enough inside to notice.

Then a car slid in front of me on the road with a plate that simply said “QUIET.”

While driving, I got three cell phones from professional colleagues, two were friends, one a real pro I haven’t met yet. All were warm and friendly. What timing. It’s good to be aware of how these things line up. It’s no coincidence.

Last week, there were two similar days of utter blessedness on a family visit to the Midwest. It was an unusual, deeper bonding with the family clan and everything went so well. There’s so much love in family. It’s unconditional, and a gift to savor.

After this particularly blessed visit with my Father, we walked to my car thinking of Irish blessings to leave each other with, and in a quiet pause, I noticed a bumper sticker on the car next to mine. “Grace Happens.”

No kidding.

Back in my room, I pulled out the spiritual classic “Abandonment to Divine Providence” and discovered a bookmark at the page that contained this wisdom:

“…in spite of all our troubles and disturbance, there is something deep-seated within us which keeps us steadfastly attached to God. ‘Truly,’ said Jacob, ‘God is in this place and I never knew it’ (Gen. 28:16). You seek for God, and he is everywhere…he walks beside you, he surrounds you and is within you. He lives with you and yet you try to find him. You seek your own idea of God, although you have him in his reality. You seek perfection and you meet it in all that happens to you…”

There are a lot of things happening out there to report on, and I will. This was an unlikely and personal account to share with you, but I did. It’s uplifting, and we need to be lifted up. We report on the bad times in the media, we need to report on the good, the great, and the blessed.

Grace happens. And it is amazing.