The Dance of Grace

What enters your mind when you hear the word graceful? For me, it’s an image of a dancer: a skilled ballerina in a delicate rose-tinted gown twirling and spinning and pirouetting along a smoothly polished cream-colored tile floor, dipping and swaying to soft piano notes, never tripping, falling, or missing a step. Her frame is a living work of art set to poetic and rhythmic motion, her movements fluid, her gestures graceful. 

On the heels of this image follows another picture, different in details yet the same in aura. In my mind’s eye, I see a stately swan floating across a glassy lake, its serene appearance on the surface belying the paddling taking place underwater. Its surroundings are peaceful and still, its pace well-measured, the arch of its neck graceful.

I don’t know this for sure, but I’m guessing that what came into your mind at the mention of the word graceful was similar. I’m guessing that what first flitted into your thoughts wasn’t an image of a clumsy clown or croaking bullfrog. They have their place, but they’re not what we would call graceful.

After all, doesn’t being graceful mean being eloquent? Doesn’t it mean possessing the suitable words for every conversation, knowing the proper response to every situation, and memorizing the right motions for every occasion? Doesn’t being graceful mean you’ll never stumble and fall?

Wait. That doesn’t sound true after all.

While those images are beautiful, they offer an incomplete and therefore inaccurate picture of what being graceful looks like. If being graceful means never making a mistake and requires serene surroundings at all times, then it’s impossible to live a life of grace. It’s a hopeless cause—if that’s what being graceful truly means.

But there is hope, because that’s not the definition of grace. That isn’t ultimately what being graceful means, because that’s not who grace is for. 

I think we need to reconsider our notions of what being graceful means and allow ourselves to dream, coming closer to what a graceful life can be. What if being graceful doesn’t mean you won’t fall, but that someone will be there to catch you when you stumble? What if living gracefully doesn’t mean gliding unscathed across glassy seas, but rather being held by someone who won’t let go even when you cross turbulent and troubled waters? What if our entire concept of what it means to be graceful is completely upside down?

What would it mean if grace was greater than we had ever imagined?

What if it’s all true?

It is!

the beauty of grace

I’ve come to believe that grace isn’t as pretty as we usually think it should be. That’s because God’s grace meets us where we are. His grace comes to us when we’ve run as far as we can flee from His love and fallen hard in dark places. There’s nowhere we can go that His grace won’t find us and bring us back again.

When grace pursues you though you’ve gone away, it’s the most beautiful thing in the world. But the beauty of grace isn’t the pristine and flowery kind, all smooth and glistening and light. That’s because God’s grace comes at great cost to the giver. Grace looks like battered feet stumbling up a rocky path and blood-stained beams standing on a hill and nail-torn hands reaching out wide. It feels like the weight of the world’s rebellion bearing down on the light of sinless perfection. It tastes like tears of grief and drops of healing rain falling down, watering the ground in a dusty desert and bringing the beginning of new life. It’s beautiful and painful and glorious, a wonder we’ll never fully comprehend.

When grace takes you by the hand, it picks you up, lifts you to your feet, and sets you to dancing. You may be clumsy, and you might stumble, but grace is always there to lift you up again. Under the gaze of grace, you’ll find a freedom you never had before. As you follow the feet of your teacher, you’ll find yourself gradually becoming more graceful, one step at a time.

And along the way, you’ll be called to show others the steps and welcome them to dance beside you, showing them the same grace you have been given. It’s the greatest gift we can offer to another.

Then one day, you’ll be set free to dance among the stars.