The Best Shitty Feeling

From “The Best Shitty Feeling In the World” in Accidental Saints by Nadia Bolz-Weber:

“And the thing about grace, real grace, is that it stings.  It stings because if it’s real, it means we don’t deserve it.  No amount of my own movement or strength could have held up those plates I’d stacked way too high, I tried, and I failed, and [they] suffered for it, and then they extended me kindness, compassion, and forgiveness out of their silo of hurt and grace….  And receiving grace is basically the best shitty feeling in the world.”

It seems an easy trap to fall into, to somehow feel that I deserve grace, or perhaps worse, that I am owed it.  But that is the sting that is pointed out.  My part in the dispensing of grace is only to have screwed up sufficiently to have created the opportunity for it to be dispensed – hardly something that warrants any accolade or reward.  No, the power of grace, the core, is not in the deservedness of the receiver but in the love of the giver.  Grace doesn’t eliminate my screw up.  It still occurred.  So yes, the sting is there, but I think she’s got it right – that receiving of grace is “the best shitty feeling in the world.”