Grace

White Woman in the Jungle - Episode 2

This is my coffee mug. This is my view. This is New Year's Eve on a hilltop in Panama.

Amazing Grace isn't just a hymn. It's the breeze blowing through the jungle right now. The flowers blooming. The storm clouds on the horizon, just past the bright, bright sun.

Grace doesn't belong to Christianity. It's the essence of life itself.

I'm here now. I've survived what I've survived. And when I look back at the things I regret - the things I'd rather the whole world didn't know about - they're behind me. I am still here. Still on my feet. Today my heart is full.

How could that be anything but grace?

I wonder how many times I made myself suffer - with insecurity, with fear, with misgivings - when if I had just turned around, I would have seen that grace was holding my hand the whole time.

She never let go.

Just because I was numb to the warmth doesn't mean it was gone. It just means I wasn't paying attention to the right things.

We celebrate New Year's Day as if something has ended and something new is beginning. But grace, like love, has no beginning and no end.

Every day is New Year's Day.

I used to love my schedule. It gave me control of all my days, all the minutes in all my days. And I was at my most unhappy.

I still have patients to see, meetings to keep, places to go. But the voice of control - the one that used to shout so loud I couldn't hear anything else - is a whisper now.

Letting go of that grip feels unmooring. But what's come loose isn't my identity or my purpose. It's the suffering. The frantic belief that if the schedule falls apart, I fall apart.

There's a foundation underneath all of it. It was always there. It will hold me no matter what.

Grace doesn't check a calendar. Love doesn't watch the clock.

Happy New Year - and every other day, too.