Searching For Grace: What’s In A Name?
Reflections on ten years of writing under this handle
I’ve been writing online for over a decade this year. There’s been breaks and inconsistency in that time, but whether I am writing here on substack or on my previous wordpress blog, I’ve used the name Searching For Grace. My blog was originally anonymous. For a time Searching For Grace was my only online writing identity. Since then I’ve had the courage to put my name to my words, which I think is an important part of writing with integrity. But I’ve never felt the need to move away from the Searching For Grace label. I thought today I would unpack what those words mean to me.
When I started writing online, I was struggling with big changes and upheavals in my life. I was young and taking ownership of my life and faith in a new way. I was looking for something, some way of being. I was trying to find how to be myself and be a Christian and do these things with integrity instead of doing what people expected of me. I was making a lot of decisions about my life, and like most young people, I made mistakes. Even plenty of the good choices I made, I would not have done the same way if I did it again.
But in all this searching and looking and turmoil I couldn’t shake the conviction that God was good, and he had abundant grace available. When others tried to frame faith as a burden, my heart rebelled, feeling sure that God was good enough and wise enough – and just enough – to not give us life that looked like death.
In lots of different issues, in many different aspects of church and Christian life, I felt there was a mismatch between the Gospel of Jesus, the grace displayed at the cross, and how Christians treated people – each other, themselves, and even non-Christians. There was a lack of grace. There was a hardheartedness, that claimed to be tough love but was often just tough. As a parent I am well aware that love does not always look or feel soft or cuddly. But love is not hitting someone and saying it is for their own good.
What do I mean by grace? Grace is a pouring out of love and kindness, greater than what is needed or required. Grace is forgiveness that does not let wrongs sit without being dealt with. It is not a permissiveness that lets bad behaviour continue to harm, but acts to stop what hurts and destroys, out of deep, abiding love for both the wronged and the wrongdoer.
All these years later, my questions are different, my struggles are different, but my desire remains the same: in everything, to look for the way of Jesus. To look for the approach that takes the grace of Jesus into account and uses that as the centre of it’s meaning and purpose. Whether that’s parenting or mental health or women in church or loving those who are struggling themselves: I look for grace. I search for grace. I try and demonstrate that grace. And when I fail, I go to Jesus for his grace, which never fails.
P.S. These musings started because I was recently featured on Something Funny, Something True, where Amy has started a writer showcase series. Amy is a wonderful writer and friend, if you haven’t already checked her work out, I would highly recommend it!
