It’s been a wee quiet here the last ten days. I’d love to tell you I took a nice relaxing break. Truth is I threw out my back and sitting upright to type has proven difficult and painful.
And now I appear to be getting a cold.
But that’s not what this short essay is about. It’s about grace, specifically: giving yourself grace.
Grace can be defined in many ways, but the one I speak of is about being cordial to yourself. In the 2010 novel Skippy Dies, author Paul Murray writes:
Life makes fools of all of us sooner or later. But keep your sense of humor and you’ll at least be able to take your humiliations with some measure of grace. In the end, you know, it’s our own expectations that crush us.
Paul Murray, Skippy Dies
It’s the last line most worthy of our attention: “it’s our own expectations that crush us.”
Maybe you had a rough start to the day or you don’t feel well and trying to go about your normal routine has shown itself to be an uphill climb.
Whatever it is, be easy on yourself. Take a day off from your expectations.
I’ve been hard on myself the past week. Despite my wife being understanding of my physical limitations because of my back, I have, nonetheless, felt like a burden. I haven’t been able to help out with the kids or around the house like I normally do. In turn, she’s had to take on a heavier load and I can see the exhaustion in her eyes.
I need to give myself grace and my wife needs to give herself grace and you, I bet, need to give yourself some grace, too.
We all do, more than we realize.
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