When I was little, I loved to play dress-up. I loved wearing the heels and long dresses and stealing all my grandma’s costume jewelry all in the name of being pretty. But I also loved the idea of pretending, just for a moment, to be a princess because I loved how graceful and elegant they always seemed to be.
I was never a graceful child. I would trip and fall frequently, knocked things over daily (if not hourly) and had a tendency to find walls and doors with my face – or me feet, or my elbows. Finding my knees clear and free of bruises was more surprising than the blue-black marks were to me. But I always wanted to be graceful, just like all those princesses in the movies.
It wasn’t until recently, though, that I wondered why the word “graceful” would be used to describe the elegance and eloquence of ladies and princesses. As a Christian, and especially right now as a representative of Jesus Christ on my mission, I have learned to rely on Grace, capital “G” in everything. Grace is the enabling power that comes through the Atoning Sacrifice of the Redeemer. We learn from the scriptures that it is only through the Grace of Christ that we are saved; though never because of a lack of effort on our own part, for it’s enabling power is administered to us “after all we can do” (2 Ne. 25:23), but because as humans we are restricted to human abilities when so often the trials of life require the strength of God to overcome. Further, though, we know that Grace is more about becoming than overcoming. For as Moroni teaches we are to “come unto Christ, and be perfected in Him…then is His [G]race sufficient for you, that by His [G]race ye may be perfect in Christ.” (Moroni 10:32). Grace is the power through which God and Christ expect to make us gods! How, then, can the power of such magnitude be reduced to describing the eloquence with which human beings adorn themselves?
Now maybe I’m wrong. Maybe, in the beginning, kings and queens used the word “Graceful” because they understood that they could never the rulers they needed to be without relying wholly upon the merits Him who was King above all. Maybe ALL I know is that if to do something “Gracefully” means to do something full of the Grace of Christ (as it very well should), then one cannot walk Gracefully until he or she is lifting others with every deliberate step. One cannot speak Gracefully until his or her silver tongue melts and gives way to glad tidings of great joy. And to be perfectly candid, one cannot do anything Graceful by themselves at all, because the very word implies the insufficiency of human might overcome by He who was more than human. In fact, I find it perfectly truthful to say that there is only one thing on this earth that any individual could ever do Gracefully on his or her own merit, and that is to spend every ounce of his or her limited strength bringing others to Christ – so that they can partake of His Grace with us.
It turns out, living Gracefully is much easier than learning to walk without tripping; and, in the end, it’s much more fulfilling. Why? Because to truly live with Grace means that you can finally admit that you can’t be perfect on your own, accept Christ’s divine help, and then, in the end, becoming strong enough to do it on your own anyway because His gifts are never temporary. Both paths may lead to crowns and kingdoms, but the Lord’s way comes with the promise that no matter how many times your own feet get tangled up or how clumsily we manage to trip our way through life, as long as we trust Him to make up the rest, we will always be tripping Gracefully.
Butterflies and Other Miracles 