When You Think Receiving Grace is Too Difficult
For a lot of years of my adult life, receiving race did not come easily to me. Even today, I catch myself starting to brush it off. That’s when my mind goes back to when a friend showed up at my door once with dinner, flowers, and two hours of her time during a particularly difficult stretch of my life.
That caught me off guard, since I hadn’t told her how bad things were. She just noticed. Silently observing. My first instinct was to tell her I was fine. That she didn’t need to do this. That I had it handled.
She looked at me, set the food on the counter, and said, “Just let me be there for you.”
I cried for about ten minutes after that. Things were hard, but I hadn’t really let myself process my emotions. I just went through the motions and kept pushing forward. And I fell back on my typical habit of deflecting. With her there, though, I let myself be vulnerable.
When Receiving Grace Means Letting Go of Control
So many of us are guilty of allowing our pride to disguise itself as self-sufficiency. You know, the lie that tells you needing help is weakness. That accepting kindness you haven’t earned or reciprocated creates a debt you’ll need to repay. That the safest thing is to manage your own needs quietly so nobody ever has to see how much weight you’re actually carrying.
I had lived by that code for a long time, mainly because of repeated betrayals from people I thought I could trust.
But that afternoon, my friend’s quiet insistence cracked open in me the realization that receiving grace requires surrendering control. You can’t receive what you’re busy deflecting. And you can’t deflect grace indefinitely without it costing you something. Usually, that something is the very connection you needed most.
Romans 4:7 says, “Blessed are those whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered.” The blessing isn’t in the earning. It’s in the receiving. The posture is open hands, not folded arms.
What Receiving Grace Teaches You About Giving It
In the weeks after my friend showed up at my door, I changed how I showed up for other people. Having experienced what it felt like to have grace extended without conditions, I started extending it differently myself. No ledger, no expectations, and no bill arriving later.
Receiving grace doesn’t just change what you believe about mercy. It changes how you carry it into the world. MERCY — My Eternal Redeemer Covers You. When you’ve truly felt what it means to be covered, you become someone who covers others. Not perfectly. Not without effort. But genuinely, because you know firsthand what it cost someone to show up for you when you were busy insisting you were fine.
That’s mercy multiplied. And it starts with learning to let someone love you.
Join the Conversation
Is there an area of your life where you’ve been deflecting grace from God or others because receiving it feels too vulnerable or too undeserved?
Spend a few minutes writing in your journal or recording a voice memo finishing this: “I’ve been deflecting grace in _____ because _____, and what it might look like to actually receive it is _____.” Sometimes naming the deflection is the first step toward opening your hands.
