Grace

Growing up Catholic I heard this word quite often. We sang (or mouthed the words) ‘Amazing Grace’ during Sunday service and the Hail Mary prayer said that Mary was full of grace.

For a very long time I associated the word with religion.

Recently I have been thinking a lot about it though.

Earlier this year I had a photo shoot for underDARE with another model, Ave. We met up at the photo studio with my friend Sophie and Shannonlee, who were there to take pictures. Marcy, the owner of underDARE was running a little late. It happens.

I was a little… hm, antsy? Annoyed? I was concerned at how much we planned to shoot and wondered if we would have enough time to do everything that we needed to do, especially since we had rented the space for only three hours.

One of my biggest character flaws is getting, well, bitchy when someone is running late.

I am not the type of person that believes that “everything happens for a reason” but I am the type of person that believes that everything works out. Somehow. The process itself might be a mess but somehow what needed to be done got done. Somehow. It’s like trying to bake a cake when you have no idea what you’re doing and you’re missing half of the needed ingredients and you think the entire time it’s going to be a disaster buuuut somehow the cake turns out better than you thought it would.

As the four of us waited we chatted and got to know one another. Well, obviously I knew Sophie and Shannonlee, but Ave didn’t know any of us. Meeting people for the first time isn’t easy (at least for me as I tend to be a little standoffish (another big character flaw)) and when you are doing the type of shoot we were doing, being comfortable around others is pretty important.

As we waited I expressed my thoughts about how we were not starting on time and how the shoot hadn’t even started but was already stumbling. Ave had a completely different vibe, though. They talked about how although Marcy was running late, she was keeping in touch with us and letting us know she was on her way. It was her way of doing what she could to rectify things. Sure, she was late, but she was doing what she could to make amends.

But then they mentioned grace.

They talked about all the times other people in their lives offered them grace when they made a mistake. The people in their lives forgave them, moved on, and accepted apologies when they offered them. Friendships and relationships were amended and everyone moved on. No grudges, no passive-aggressive feelings, just acknowledgment that people make mistakes and sometimes all that can be done is accept a sincere apology and move on.

Of course, an apology without a change in future behavior tends to ring a little hollow, but that’s neither here nor there.

This is not to say that one should forgive and forget everything that someone does to you, but there’s a significant difference between someone running late and someone deliberately hurting you.

Ave was graceful towards Marcy and her running late.

I felt ashamed about how I was feeling. I thought about all the times I had been running late for someone and how the people I was meeting shrugged it off. I apologize for my lateness and thanked them for waiting because that was all I could do. Apologies were accepted and we all moved on.

If others offered grace when I was running late, then the least I could do is offer someone else grace when others weren’t able to be on time.

This conversation changed my life. Perhaps this was their way of subtly offering a different perspective of the situation and wanted me to, well, stop being bitchy about something that happens to everyone. It was a lot more effective than saying “Hey Hannah, stop being such a bitch”. Being direct is one thing, being gentle is another.

Marcy showed up and we got to work. And guess what? Everything worked out. Again. They almost always do.

Last week I screwed up at work. There was a “system enhancement” that went into effect in December but of course no one told my team. This little tweak changed something in a program we use and made it look like someone was deliberately modifying files that shouldn’t be changed.

So, I politely (honestly) asked my colleague to stop doing that. He said okay. But it kept happening. I asked him again, a little more direct. He pushed back. He said he wasn’t doing it. So, I screenshotted the proof that he was indeed changing things. Again, he pushed back and he himself was a little more direct.

Annoyed, I reached out to my IT team and that’s when I learned about the aforementioned enhancement. He was right, he wasn’t doing anything, despite the program saying he did.

I was one hundred percent wrong when I thought, thanks to the screenshots, that I was completely in the right.

I reached out to him to apologize but he had left for the day. I spent the next sixteen hours wracked with guilt for my accusations and felt terrible for the tension I had (inadvertently) created. I am sure he just pissed at me. I mean, no one likes being accused of doing something that they didn’t do.

The next morning I was able to apologize. I think it’s important to apologize for specific things and words and actions, so I did that. I also think it’s important that I explain my thought process and actions, so I did that too.

He accepted the apology and acknowledged how the “enhancement” led me to think about the things I did.

He did this with grace.

Mistakes happen, tensions rise, and sometimes something like a system update can lead to things like this. Of course, I need to accept responsibility for my actions and I can’t blame everything on IT. I should have worked with him and tried to understand what he was doing on his end. I should have been more collaborative with my colleague which would have helped avoid the tension.

But I didn’t. I was certain I was right. I mean, afterall, I did have the screenshots. But they didn’t prove anything in the way I thought they did.

I am grateful he accepted my apology with grace. He didn’t have to.

No harm, no foul, right? But I paid a price, deservedly so, by feeling terrible for sixteen hours. Penance, another term I learned from growing up Catholic, was fully in effect here. I felt terrible for sixteen hours.

I need to remember these two moments. I need to implement offering grace more than I do. I need to accept apologies from others in a more sincere way. I need to stop holding grudges and remembering moments when others make mistakes, especially when in retrospect they weren’t as egregious as I felt they were at the time.

Life happens. We get overwhelmed and we can’t meet the commitments we thought we could. We can’t meet a deadline that we set. We can’t be on time because sometimes everything goes to hell.

Yes, sometimes people are ALWAYS late. Sometimes people break EVERY promise they make. But that’s not the same as someone falling short here and there.

I tend to cut people out of my life too quickly. I tend to let a moment, an argument, reshape a relationship that up until then was pleasant. I feel I need to start evaluating these moments and arguments to see if they really are as significant as I felt they were at the time. I tend to get swept up in a moment and let things escalate and sometimes I say things that I shouldn’t. It’s in these moments I need to pause and step back.

One thing I like about getting older is the perspective I gain. People talk about the formative years and how our lives are shaped early on. It’s easy for one to become set in their ways but goodness I hope that doesn’t happen to me. I hope I am always open to improving myself and becoming a better person. I have no problem admitting when I am wrong (such as in the example with my work colleague) and I hope I can always do that.

Of course, sometimes it’s apologizing for a situation that could have been avoided by not letting it escalate, but I suppose that’s another character flaw I need to work on next.

Love, Hannah