Grace

Grace

My on-line dictionary defines “grace” as “free and unmerited favor from God.”  I looked the word up this morning as it came to mind last night while watching the NCAA Championship Game between Georgia and Alabama.  In that game the Alabama kicker missed a relatively short last-second field goal that would have won the game.  Georgia kicked a field goal in overtime to go ahead, but Alabama won minutes later with a touchdown pass in overtime.  With that ending the Alabama kicker had some “free and unmerited favor” pass his way, or more colloquially, had the weight of the world lifted off his shoulder.  His missed field goal was transformed from a potentially crushing blow to a necessary piece of a miraculous ending.  I mean, if you are going to be remembered as the guy who missed the field goal in a story, you want this ending, not the other one the game was headed to.

Thinking on this, it occurs to me that while not to this magnitude, life is full of grace.  Often, quite often when I think of it (IF I think of it), when things appear to be headed one way (toward the shitter) some “free and unmerited favor” appears and things head the other.  That is, if/when I think on it, I recognize that my life is grace-full.  And for that I am grateful – or should be.