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Have you ever longed for grace?  I do. I long for it all the time. There’s that fluid physical adroitness that you see in pictures, film, or on stage. To watch it makes my chest heat and swell, pressure building until it feels like I am drowning. Maybe it’s just my heart growing three sizes too big from the beauty of it. It will literally bring me to tears.

When I belly danced, I felt graceful for almost the first time in my life. It is a similar feeling now to when I wear my favorite dress and heels. I have at least a small sense of the work and dedication that goes into harnessing such grace within yourself and I admire those who do all the more deeply. But there are those for whom grace seems a natural state of being and they are also people whom I admire.

I don’t feel graceful all the time; more than half the time, I rather feel like I am plunking along through life. Racing here and stumbling there, banging to this or that, and doing my best to do life as well as I can. But grace goes so far beyond the lines that my body makes when it moves or stretches or dances. So while I long and strive for grace of movement, what is even more important to me, I have found, is grace of heart, grace of soul. I want to show grace throughout my life. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to be a pushover or a doormat. No. But that is not what grace means. Grace is showing compassion and love, giving a soft answer rather than giving someone the piece of our mind that we may feel they so richly deserve. It is listening to hear rather than just waiting for our turn to speak. It is continuing to give and remember, even in those times when we might feel forgotten ourselves. That is the grace that I want, the grace that deeply desire to cultivate and root deeply in my life and to show my daughter as she grows. That is the grace I long for.

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