Have you ever looked at windblown land and wondered what made it so wonderful? Those places, eroded over centuries into soft waves and rapturous textures of stone, have come to exist through constant exposure, shaped and reshaped by the elements.
These landscapes hold a beauty that intoxicates us. We marvel at the architecture of nature, rarely considering the complex and difficult life behind it. We see only the grace that remains. In truth, grace is the result of centuries of transformation, most of it unwitnessed – no one there to honor the hardness of the journey toward becoming.
The arrival of grace isn’t something anyone plans. It’s part of the long sequence of becoming. Grace can’t be controlled or forced; it isn’t something we can make ourselves be. It’s a reality that is formed through living—through enduring what we cannot direct.
I think grace is often mistaken for control, holding ourselves back from saying the thing or from being reactive. But that’s restraint, management, or discipline – not grace. Grace is born through these qualities only when we’re conscious of them, when restraint becomes awareness.
When we notice ourselves clenching our jaws, swallowing our words, or watching judgment stream across the mind, something shifts. What was once unconscious becomes illuminated. That light marks the beginning of transformation, the slow smoothing of stone.
This is the era of the storm, when we begin to see through the cracks in our ways of being. What has lived beneath the surface begins to rise. There is no single destiny here; realization itself creates an undoing. And like the long ages it takes to round the edges of rock, we too need time to reform.
We see it in the small moments: the ease with which we get pulled into unhealthy dialogue online, the temper that flares when family doesn’t meet our expectations, the fear that surfaces when we feel unheard. The ways we use control as a relational tool. The stories we tell about others in our minds. The way our children struggle, and how easily we look outward for blame instead of inward for reflection. The overgiving of our energy. The quickness of our judgment.
All of these are invitations. They ask for time, awareness, and courage.
When I look around at the world’s suffering, at the destruction of nature, the violence and separation, the erosion of critical thought, I see a culture that has grown afraid of discomfort. The comforts of modern life have made us wary of pain, and yet it’s pain that teaches us how to be courageous. Without courage, grace cannot take form.
Grace is the outcome of resilience, the ability to walk ourselves through pain, heartbreak, disappointment, and sadness. To look beyond what we’ve believed to be true and imagine another way of being.
Imagine grace as a kind of truth serum. Once we tend to the parts of life that have wreaked havoc on us—once we sit facing the storm, our faces stung by the wind—we begin to build resilience. And through that endurance comes the tender art of softening. Of letting go of what we once clung to so tightly. Of releasing the compass of certainty and finding instead a quiet reverence for the unfolding.
In that place of reverence, where we’ve learned to rise without blame, grace grows.
I’ve been musing on the word grace for some time, entertaining its boldness, dancing with its meaning. In a life that, for many of us, is full of challenges meant for awakening, can we listen closely enough to learn how to be graceful? How to shimmer when everything feels stale? How to surrender without resistance? How to reach for connection when we feel abandoned? How to respond honestly and gently, even when we see the world differently from someone else?
Grace doesn’t take away our free will or our fire. It doesn’t mean we can’t stand for what is fair or just. It simply changes the way we stand. Our fight becomes rooted in wisdom rather than attack, in steadiness rather than fury.
The next time you hold a smooth stone, remember the storms it survived to become what it is. And the next time you find yourself in the presence of someone who carries quiet grace, remember, they, too, have been weathered by time, shaped by storms, and softened by endurance.
with love,
Noelle