Grace is something that moves in our lives like the wind. It comes in moments when we least expect it and we recognize it for learning the whisper of it that reminds us of all that is good, all that is true, and all that is love in the world. We can in our lives become people who are Grace Whisperers, ones who rest in the light of God’s love so much so, that we move with the grace of God in ways that bring light, love, and wholeness to the others we encounter in the world. To move with Grace requires a catch and a release. We catch the waves of God’s grace and we release all power that is our own, this movement leaves us in a whirl of vulnerability, but it is in that place of vulnerability that God’s power becomes our own.
It should teach us something that God’s grace in its fullest form enters into the world into the skin of something as vulnerable as a newborn child. If the God of the Heavens lived cloaked with robes of majesty, this God undresses and takes on the most exquisitely vulnerable reality. The one powerful enough to speak all creation into being, also chooses to exalt one who the world would believe to be unworthy. Grace whispers to Mary, “you are worthy, you are a wonderful, beautiful, child of God. You are more than enough to carry the love of God!” Grace whirls within Mary, she releases any insecurity that might have been gifted to her by her community and the Power of God is remembered by her and through her as the grace of it lifts up into the air in her song.
Mary teaches us with three words how to release oneself to the greatest power in all the world. When Mary says, “Let it Be,” she recognizes that the safest place for her to find herself in her life, is held in the promise of God’s grace that is whispering sacred truths all around her. Mary catches those waves of grace and releases all hold, all power, any sense of need to control. She releases herself into vulnerable, sacred, trust. Mary is one of the most powerful women in all of scripture, not because of the way she sings words of power and might, but because of the way she lives in the humble space required of one to be a receiver of them. Her power is in the vessel she allows herself to be.
So often we cling to power, cling to a need to control. Grace whispers to us, “release.” So often, we get dressed up in our own power, our designs of how things in our lives and the lives of others should be, but grace says to us, “shed all of that. The love of God entered into the world as a fragile, naked, little baby. You have no idea the power that is held in this sort of vulnerability, but watch love as it rises.”
Love sits with the meek, the lowly, the outcast, the oppressed. Love honors women and children and all of mankind. Love shares meals with those cloaked in sin and washes the feet of those who stumble along their way. Love reaches across every boundary to stand in solidarity. Love does not walk alone, love circles, and multiplies. Love pierces lies with truth and humbles oneself in vulnerable honesty. Love walks in poverty and love sits under trees, on mountainsides, and by the sea–teaching about the abundance held in sacred, creative, space. Love sleeps in hospitality. Love forgives, not once, but again and again and again. Love sings, love laughs, love is patient and kind, and love is the prophetic song calling each of us to humble ourselves in order that we might in God’s grace, like Mary, be empowered to rise.
As always, it has been a gift to be…
With you on the journey,
Michelle
