Ash Wednesday and the gift of grace

My colleague Sarah recently shared the following story with me reflecting on her experience of the gift of grace. 

Last weekend I was in the local supermarket, pushing my trolley of groceries to the shortest checkout queue, and I lined up behind an older couple. I always try to choose a checkout operated by a real employee not the self-service queue, and on this occasion the teenage checkout operator was identified by her name tag as “Grace”.  Friendly and warm, without holding up the queue with her conversation, Grace packed the older couple’s shopping intelligently and sensibly (cold items together, cleaning products separate from perishables). She could see that the older couple were frail, so she didn’t overfill their bags with heavy items, and even more than that, lifted and placed them into the trolley for the couple. 

While my observations were not earth shattering and perhaps it wasn’t a big thing, it actually struck me that Grace was a person who lived up to the meaning of her name. I began thinking about the idea, the gift of grace and what it meant, especially in the context of coming into the Easter season.

To experience grace, as Grace the checkout operator offered, is to receive a gift that we have done nothing to deserve.  As a girl’s name, Grace has been frequently on the list of most popular names for babies born at St John of God Health Care, and in fact, popular since the sixteenth century, when it was used to signify the love and mercy freely given to humanity by God.

The Christian season of Lent begins on Ash Wednesday and is the 40 day period before Easter where we are invited to open ourselves to the gift of grace.

Today on Ash Wednesday and every day we can show grace to others in ways that are both small and great.