“After centuries of handling and mishandling, most religious words have become so shopworn nobody’s much interested anymore. Not so with grace, for some reason. Mysteriously, even derivatives like gracious and graceful still have some of the bloom left.
Grace is something you can never get but can only be given. There’s no way to earn it or deserve it or bring it about any more than you can deserve the taste of raspberries and cream or earn good looks or bring about your own birth.
A good sleep is grace and so are good dreams. Most tears are grace. The smell of rain is grace. Somebody loving you is grace. Loving somebody is grace. Have you ever tried to love somebody?
A crucial eccentricity of the Christian faith is the assertion that people are saved by grace. There’s nothing you have to do. There’s nothing you have to do. There’s nothing you have to do.
The grace of God means something like: ‘Here is your life. You might never have been, but you are, because the party wouldn’t have been complete without you. Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don’t be afraid. I am with you. Nothing can ever separate us. It’s for you I created the universe. I love you.’
There’s only one catch. Like any other gift, the gift of grace can only be yours if you’ll reach out and take it.
Maybe being to reach out and take it is a gift too.”
An Excerpt from Beyond Words: Daily Readings in the ABC’s of Faith by Frederick Buechner
gathering my thoughts 
The difference between mercy and grace was explained to me like this:
I am a murderer (I’ve killed many things including hopes, dreams, and boxes of chocolates) and because I am a murderer, I deserve death.
Mercy means that I get a stay of execution. I’m just not dead…yet.
Grace means I not only get a stay of execution, but I am invited to live in a palace with every possible good thing at my disposal.
I didn’t earn mercy or grace, but clearly grace takes you further.
God is like that. He says that although I was a sinner rightfully condemned to die, He bought my pardon with Jesus Christ’s death on the cross for MY sin. But not only that, He has a mansion awaiting me in Glory. That’s mercy and grace God-style!
LikeLike
I’ve always belived that Is given as a gift after you have prayed the Holy Rosary. The state of mind is a feeling of letting go and letting God direct thy path, a feeling of love that it is only given by receiving grace…Pray the rosary.♡.
LikeLike
Beautiful! Thank you.Thank you. I also think Grace spans denominations. Is grace also Buddhist in principle? It doesn’t arrive from trying hard to get it, or deserving it, or working hard for it. It comes…. with one condition: You must be receptive. Yin.
LikeLike