Sometimes Grace Looks Like Showing Up Anyway

The more public I become with my story, my books, and my podcast, the more I realize I can’t only share the hopeful parts of my life. If I’m going to talk about authenticity, then I need to actually be authentic. And today was messy.

I woke up in pain. I’ve been dealing with something going on with my left arm and shoulder, and I had an MRI on Friday. I didn’t sleep great, I hurt, and I was in a bad mood. My prayer time didn’t feel very fruitful either. I tried to pray, but my heart just wasn’t in it. I was irritated, uncomfortable, and honestly, I didn’t really want to be around anyone, including myself.

I still made myself get ready for Mass. Then I stood in my closet and cried because I hated everything I put on. Since my hysterectomy this spring, my hormones have been all over the place and I’ve gained weight. I’m working on that with my doctor and dietitian, but knowing that doesn’t make it easier to look in the mirror and feel comfortable in your own body. Eventually, I found a dress I hadn’t worn in years. I put it on, thought I looked frumpy, and went to Mass anyway. I also told myself that after Mass I was going to buy flowers because if I wasn’t going to be cheerful today, at least my apartment could be.

Then God started chipping away at my mood.

People smiled at me when I walked into church, and someone complimented my dress. Fr. Luke gave a homily about not allowing evil to prevail, and something about it hit me exactly where I was. After Mass, more people stopped me. They asked how I was doing. They complimented the dress I had cried over wearing. Someone even wanted to know where I bought it.

Then I went to Walmart for my flowers. As I was walking out, two women I had never met stopped me and told me they loved my dress. One of them said it made me look beautiful and that it just “screamed you're a woman with a great personality.”

I almost laughed. Seriously, God?

These women knew absolutely nothing about the morning I had just had. They didn’t know I had cried in my closet. They didn’t know how uncomfortable I felt in my body. They didn’t know I had gone to Mass in a terrible mood. And they certainly didn’t know that the dress they loved was the same dress I almost didn’t wear because I thought I looked awful in it.

Maybe that was exactly the point.

I think sometimes I expect grace to feel big, obvious, and holy. I expect it to come during beautiful prayer when I feel completely connected to God. But today, grace looked different. Grace looked like making myself go to Mass when I didn’t feel like it. It looked like people noticing me when I wanted to disappear. It looked like a homily I needed to hear. It looked like strangers at Walmart saying something kind at exactly the right moment. And it looked like buying myself flowers because I knew I needed a little beauty around me.

None of the things that were bothering me this morning magically disappeared. I’m still dealing with the pain. I’m still figuring out what’s going on with my shoulder. I’m still working through the changes in my body. But my mood changed. My apartment is a little brighter, and I feel a little more like myself again.

So maybe my prayer time this morning was more fruitful than I thought.

Being open to God doesn’t always mean feeling peaceful, joyful, or particularly prayerful. Sometimes it means coming to Him irritated, hurting, frustrated, and not feeling very much like yourself. It means getting dressed when you would rather stay home, walking through the church doors anyway, and trusting that God can work with whatever you managed to bring Him that day.

Sometimes grace doesn’t change the circumstances.

Sometimes grace simply meets us right in the middle of them.

And sometimes being faithful is as simple as showing up anyway.