“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight. Proverbs 3:5-6

Extending grace to ourselves can feel impossible. It can feel impossible because some of us are perfectionist or workaholics or pessimists. We feel like we don’t deserve grace because we aren’t meeting our own ridiculous standards, or we need help. Maybe we struggle to extend grace because we think the price is too high?

Maybe we fail to give ourselves grace because we fail to grasp how complete, how transformational, and how expensive the love of God ultimately was. In the name of grace, God paid with the life of His own dear and perfect Son. God didn’t think any price was too high to give us His grace.

In our quest for grace bestowed upon ourselves, can we afford to pay our pride? Asking for help takes humility and an acceptance of our limitations. We don’t like seeing our limits let alone asking someone to step into the midst of them to walk with us. But, when we are open and honest, help will come. And, come gladly.

Can we cope with changing expectations? Redefining our expectations for ourselves is so much harder than doing it for others. We have that little voice of condemnation that waits for instances like this to tear us down. That’s not a friendly voice, that’s a dangerous enemy. Life is full of changes and reasons to redefine expectations. The times they are hardest are when we must be kind and give ourselves grace instead of others. For some reason, we feel like we must keep doing exactly what we were before that major event changed everything. Sounds silly when we put it like that, right?

Are we willing to let go of our own dreams in order to experience grace? Sometimes we will find that a dream we crafted on our own isn’t one that God mastered. Or perhaps it’s just not time for that dream to come to fruition. Can we trust God enough to let it go and rest in His faithfulness? When we finally let go we give ourselves grace to experience His never-ending goodness.

The “picture ready” society we supposedly live in makes the reality that we live in feel like shambles. These pictures, blog posts, and videos that we are inundated with are staged, edited, and retaken for maximum perfection. We know that, but we struggle against them. There is still a disconnect between the staged “perfect” and our messy realities.

“It is important to give ourselves GRACE when we don’t meet our expectations.”… “It’s true we can, without even thinking, be meaner to ourselves than we would ever think about saying to anyone else. We lack compassion and kindness towards ourselves.” Dr. Mary Starr

“You are worthy of being nice to yourself. You shouldn’t just be only nice to everyone else and not yourself. You deserve grace, kindness, and compassion too” by a Jennifer on Joyfully unexpected.

We must learn to give ourselves the gift of grace. We torment ourselves and cause a host of difficulties if we don’t. If we need to let a dream or expectation go because it’s hurting us more than it’s helping us, shall we let it go? If it’s accepting a new reality, shall we accept it? If it’s starting small- to learn to love ourselves as we truly are- shall we start small and start now?

Whatever reason we struggle to extend grace to ourselves, it would behoove us to find it and fix it. In the name of grace, Jesus paid it all. In the name of grace can we afford to pay up?

“Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland. Isaiah 43:18-19