WE ALL NEED GRACE
By: Lindsay Demchuk
Recently, I meandered over to a local drugstore to a pick up a couple items during an afternoon of errands. Making my way over to the cashier’s lineup, I was impressed by the length of the line. Despite two cashiers being open and available, only one was working to whittle down the number of increasingly-impatient customers.
As I got closer to the front, the reason for the wait became apparent. A woman decided to purchase a number of gift cards, covering the cost of each with a different form of payment and littering each payment with a number of questions. My heart went out to the weary cashier – having worked in retail, I’ve experienced my fair share of customers like this.
The gentleman ahead of me was gathering up his recently purchased items into his hands as the cashier waved me over to pay. With the placement of the two cashiers, it ended up that I was standing in between the gentleman and woman – still paying for her stack of gift cards. Instead of leaving when he was finished, he walked around me, got right up into this woman’s face and told her that she was the rudest, most demanding, difficult and selfish woman he’d ever seen. With that, he turned on his heel and left the store.
When I was finally able to pull my jaw up off the floor, it took a lot of effort to not shake my head and stare. There was no doubt that this woman was being difficult – the weary cashier’s face attesting to that exact fact. But, in that moment, my disgust didn’t lie with the woman but the man whose character was just very openly put on display for the entire crowd in line. And it wasn’t pretty.
Recently married, my husband and I were working through a few, brief tense moments and came to the conclusion that it was probable that we need to extend a little more grace to one another. Slowly, it’s becoming evident that despite our initial thoughts, we both have carried varied, unconscious expectations of one another and – surprise! – the other spouse(a) doesn’t know about them and (b) isn’t adhering to them.
It becomes apparent in numerous ways and in a variety of situations: driving down the highway, dealing with a co-worker, in our closest relationships and with individuals we pass on the street (or in drugstores). Situations crop up where individuals frustrate us. They don’t do what we think they should, say the proper things or just rub us the wrong way. It’s easy to get angry. Way too easy.
Part of unlocking our best selves has to do with how we treat others. Again, it’s easy to get frustrated and angry as the proverbial ‘they’ are not doing what ‘we’ think/feel they should. It’s harder to extend grace, to recognize that others – ourselves included – are not perfect, will not be perfect and, for that reason exactly, we need to give them a little extra ‘wiggle room’.
Like the perfect pair of pants, there’s room to move and breathe – room to wiggle. In the same way, people need room. Room to account for their imperfection, room that chooses to forgive and forget, room that accounts for the fact that they very well irritate us but are still worthy of respect, kindness and love. We don’t know where people are coming from when they cross our paths – their background, history, personality and the like could be totally foreign to us. Not only our close loved ones but strangers are also deserving of our grace.
Grace isn’t something deserved, it’s a gift. Giving grace to others may not guarantee that they will offer you the same. The one thing you will receive, though, when actively practicing extending grace to others is peace of mind. It may not come immediately, but it’ll be there eventually. The energy expended on frustration and anger is a waste.
So, if you end up getting stuck behind that woman in the drugstore (or whatever situation you encounter), stop and take a breath. Maybe even do a couple stretches or two in the moment, taking inventory of your physical wiggle room. Then, make the room for that person in your mind and extend a little grace. It’d be far more comfortable standing behind you in line as you stretch awkwardly - rather than sharing a piece of your mind that really would have been better kept in your mind.
