Grace

[Denise Stromme] Hello and welcome to Two for You. I don't know about you, but lately, I've been hearing a lot of talk for the need of grace. Now, grace is one of those topics that we all seem to know about showing grace, receiving grace, but it's kind of a  complicated thing.

And what Lori and I discovered is not a lot of research has been done on grace. Grace the definition is the act of giving acceptance unconditionally and voluntarily to an undeserving person by an unobligated giver. Now, that's a really long definition, but it's kind of cool when you think about it, that it's the giving of acceptance.

And humans as social creatures acceptance is very important for us. We want to be part of a community, right. You know we have so many different communities in our lives, but how often are we actually the giver? Are we giving grace to people that we feel don't deserve it because of whatever social norm or beliefs that you may have?

But the fact is that when you give grace you are demonstrating something that encompasses many different things, such as compassion and love. And when you receive grace that feeling of being accepted even if you don't feel that you deserve it is almost overwhelming, I think. Um, when I was talking about grace with a friend she said, well, to me I just think of it as cutting someone some slack.

Kind of on the opposite end of how complicated the definition is of grace,  right, but it's a simple way to think of that is are you cutting people slack? Are you giving them the gift of grace — the gift of acceptance in your leadership? As you lead, are you using this wonderful practice of grace?

And as community members, this is something that we should be doing with our neighbors more and more often it is showing them that we accept you as someone in our community. And by showing grace and demonstrating it as a leader hopefully we create a ripple effect and grace becomes a common practice as you live and lead with intention.