Do you believe you have the capacity to bring a profound, positive impact into another person’s life? I believe that we each have the ability to bring the grace of God to another person. An encounter with the grace of God is always life-changing. In the presence of that grace, our whole makeup reshapes and re-forms. And while the grace of God is always present, when it is embodied through a person it makes a profound difference for all the people that are in touch with that grace through them.
I have a friend who lives in Littleton, Colorado. Her name is Jennifer Deisher and she has a blog under the name Moon Hippie Mystic. This is from her recent blog post, Grow the Garden (
She is waiting for you. She has a secret for you if you Listen. Grow my garden.
Come to me, I’m Always here and I’m Always free…
The most Beautiful things grow from the deepest, darkest places. Dig deep into the mud. Dig the hole. Plant the seed. Give me your shame and we will plant a seed of Compassion. Tell me your secrets along the rambling river. Show me resentment and I will show you how to grow Forgiveness. Feel my Light coming through the trees. Let me show you where to plant denial so you will blossom with Truth and Light. Climb my mountain. Let me feel where you are weary and you will see how you have Persevered.
I read these words and thought to myself, “These are some of the most beautiful words I’ve ever read.” I recognize them as words that embody the grace of God. They are words of spirit and yet they are words of Jennifer Deisher, Moon Hippie Mystic. They are words that were uttered through a person who found a way to crack open enough to allow the spirit of the Great Mother to speak through her.
We all have that same opportunity—to crack wide open so that the Great Mother can be present through our presence. The mystery and magic of the Mother of All can be with other people because weare with other people and we have cracked open and we let it be so. There may be words to say to give voice to that magic and the mystery. But ultimately it is our presence in a state of having been cracked open so that our humanity is transforming and bringing the presence of the grace of God.
You might be able to guess, from hearing Jennifer’s words, that this is not a woman who has lived a conventional life, who has just tiptoed down the path of life in joy and peace and all good things, with no challenges and no adventures on that path. She speaks from her own experience of having been cracked wide open. We do not bring the grace of God because we park our humanity someplace else and become a channel for God’s grace. It is because we have come face to face with the grace of God ourselves, in the middle of the calamity of the human experience, that we have that grace to bring to other people. In the face of our humanity, in the face of whatever challenges there are in our own life, in the face of our anxiety, our sense of victimhood, our own denial, frustrations, we have allowed the grace of God to come into us and transform it all. We have been willing to give it all up to the Great Mother.
Jennifer’s blog says this:
When you find lack I will sprout in you the seed of Gratitude…. Open me to your fear and I will teach you Courage of the Heart…. Dig deeply and plant the seed of ignorance so I may enlighten you with my Diversity…. Plant the seed of unworthiness and I will show you the Love that you are…. Unburden to me your addictions and I will bring you Freedom on the wings of Angels.
We each have the potential within us to be that one who brings this message of the Great Mother. We may use words to bring it. But beyond words, somehow, at some unseen level of communication between us as human beings, you know if this grace is present in me, and I know if it is present and available from you. The presence of grace is filled with safety and love and forgiveness and renewal. There is rebirth that is possible in that presence. All old things can be left behind.
Through that presence there is intercession, meaning that the grace of God has the possibility of interceding in another person’s life and changing it, of saying, “I don’t care what’s happened up to now; I don’t care what trajectory your life seems to be on. It’s now changing to something wonderful and magical in my presence.”
What I notice is that when the grace of God is present through a person, those around them recalculate their lives. They sort their lives out in a different way. Perhaps they have been trying to sort it out in desperation, in a way where there did not seem to be any possibility. But now they are seeing possibility where there was none. They are seeing options where it looked like there were no options. And they are finding all those experiences that the spirit of love brings to a person—the feeling of self-worth, real meaning and value, and the lifting of the awful burden of shame with which so many people live. The grace of the Great Mother says, “Come to me, I’m always here and I’m always free.”
It moves me deeply that Jennifer had a confrontation with grace in her own life, and that it interceded so profoundly for her that she cannot help but share what she experienced. That is how it is for a person when they have experienced something life-changing. Their gratitude for that awakens in them a profound reciprocity, a profound desire to give back and to pay it forward.
It is possible, in that process, to become world-weary, and to come to the belief that nobody really wants your gift anyway, and that maybe what you have experienced yourself and what was so important to you is not really important to other people. And after all, it’s been ignored by some and perhaps even ridiculed by others. So the person decides to keep it to themselves.
Today, I am inviting you to this: If God’s grace has changed your life, recall the difference that that made for you. And live this day and every day of your life, from this day forward, with that passion. Give what you were given, with the same gratitude and the same joy with which you received it, to every person that you meet. Make it available, without imposition. Act on that passion every day of your life, and embody it in your presence in the simplest of your interactions with other people. Because what makes the difference in this world is the presence of that grace, fully embodied in a person. So whatever you are about, and whatever the challenges and the ups and downs of a given day or week or year may happen to be within that, welcome the grace of God.
It is that grace that makes the difference in our world, because in it is the template of a whole person. Each one of us came on earth to be a living embodiment of that template, and that is not only what is the salvation of every person we meet, but it is the salvation of our world—that template through humanity. A whole person creates whole community—whatever community you are a part of. A whole person who is bringing that template is showing that template to their community and saying, “As a community we could be like this. We could be whole. We could be embodying this template and expressing this wholeness to the world.”
It is our destiny, each one of us, to bring that template to our community, to our family, to our friends, to our loved ones, to whatever organization we may be participating in, so that that community of whatever size and whatever nature could itself be a living template of wholeness for the world. That is the great calling and the great need of this day. That is God’s grace at work in the world.