Grace: The Force That Can Save Us

What is grace, and why does it matter?

If you struggle to define grace, you’re not alone. Mary Oliver once wrote, “You can have the other words—chance, luck, coincidence, serendipity. I’ll take grace. I don’t know what it is exactly, but I’ll take it.”

Grace, like our Creator, is wild and unpredictable, too vast for words. It is the ever-present current of love that holds this world together. It is not something we earn or control; it is a gift, freely given—a force of Divine Love, always moving, always available, whether we recognize it or not.

Richard Rohr describes grace as our deepest reality—not a transaction or a reward, but the very fabric of existence. Grace is not about worthiness; it is about belonging. It is God’s way of reminding us that we are already part of something greater than ourselves, already chosen, already enough.

And yet, so many of us move through life believing we must prove our worth, as if love must be earned. We strive, we compare, we try to fix what is broken, but deep down, we carry the ache of not measuring up.

Grace undoes this exhausting pursuit. It meets us exactly as we are—wounded, imperfect, doubting—and whispers: You are already held. You are already enough. You are already loved.

I couldn’t hear grace’s whisper for years. I felt cut off from Divine love, drowning in my alcohol addiction. But thankfully, grace is wild and relentless. It found its way in and carried me toward healing, even when I resisted.

Grace doesn’t always look how we expect. It is not just in the beauty of a sunrise or an answered prayer. Sometimes, grace comes through struggle. It is the pain that breaks us open so that light can pour in. It is the moment when life does not go the way we planned, but somehow, something unforeseen and beautiful arises from the wreckage.

Photo by Artem Sapegin on Unsplash

Grace is not just the gentle whisper of love—it is the force that bring us to our knees and saves us.

I know this because grace saved me.

I once believed I was separate—from God, from others, from any kind of love that could hold me together. And then, grace revealed the truth: I was never separate. I had just been blind to what had been there all along.

The first time I experienced this profound knowing—this sense of deep Oneness with everything and everyone—I called it a miracle. The words of Amazing Grace came to mind: I once was lost, but now I’m found.

And I was.

That moment changed the course of my life. Not because I earned grace, but because grace found me, moved through me, and showed me what I had been missing.

The more we open ourselves to grace, the more it transforms not only us, but the world around us. Grace dissolves the illusion of separateness. It reminds us that there is no hierarchy in love, that no one is more deserving than another, that we all belong to each other.

This is why America First and all other self-serving ideologies are so dangerous. They reject the essence of grace—the truth that we are all interconnected, and no one should come first at the expense of another.

Grace is the great equalizer. It invites us to expand, to see beyond our borders, beyond our tribes, beyond our egos. It asks us to slow down, to notice beauty, to practice kindness, to extend love to those we don’t understand.

And the more we do this, the more we become receptive to the wild magic of grace.

Grace is always present, offering Divine help in our darkest moments. It doesn’t always shield us from suffering, but it can transform our suffering into something sacred. It reminds us that love is the foundation of everything—that we are all held in something greater than ourselves.

If we could truly believe that grace is real, that it is available to us all, that it is the force holding this world together—perhaps we would begin to heal. Perhaps we would stop fighting for superiority and start seeing ourselves and each other as fundamentally worthy and connected. Perhaps we would finally understand that we belong to one another.

Maybe grace will save us. I know it can if enough of us allow it to transform us.

If enough of us open ourselves to its wonder, its magic, its truth—we will all finally see the world as it really is: one body, one love, one divine masterpiece, held together by grace.

May we surrender to it.

May we bow down, in awe, and say wow to a grace that is powerful enough to save us all.