Grace

Outside a bustling city!

Inside a blooming rose

on a windowsill!

Give us this day our daily bread;

Give us grace for to-day;

feed our famished affections

What kind of bread is it

we cannot be without?

----------------

The good in being, even the spiritually indispensable,

is our daily bread.

– Mary Baker Eddy

Is it not grace, love, poise, patience, and peace, which are so needed in our daily life? These can be found within -- within the universe of Mind.  Within our very being we can let ourselves be fed with the bread of illimitable riches. The ingredients of that kind of a nourishing bread are: All-inclusive love, motives made pure, truth thought and gently told, character tenderly subdued, and all kneaded with the hand blessed by divine good, blended well and then “baked” --to mature-- to be digestible, and thus to nourish our hungry heart’s longing for satisfying nutriments.  And with that priceless sense of our Beloved’s loving-kindness we know, He provides for our needs.  His grace is the richness within all things. --Eva-Maria

all pictures are by--Eva-Maria

Give us grace for to-day-------------

 An individual virtue of excellence, divine in its origin; the divine influence ever-operative in man 

to regenerate and sanctify.

And of his fullness have all

we received, and grace for grace.

--Scriptures, John 1:16

Different views on grace:

In the New Testament, the word translated as grace is the Greek word charis (Greek χάρις), pronounced khar'-ece, for which Strong's Concordance gives this definition; "Grace, the state of kindness and favor towards someone, often with a focus on a benefit given to the object." [2][3] A Greek word that is related to charis is charisma (gracious gift). Both these words originated from another Greek word chairo (to rejoice, be glad, delighted).[4] In the Old Testament, the Hebrew term used is chen [5][6] (חֵן), which is defined in Strong's as "favor, grace or charm; grace is the moral quality of kindness, displaying a favorable disposition".[7] In the King James translation, Chen is translated as "grace" 38 times, "favour" 26 times, twice as "gracious",[8] once as "pleasant",[9] and once as "precious".[10]

 

Hindu devotional or bhakti literature available throughout India is replete with references to grace (kripa) as the ultimate key required for spiritual self-realization.

Dr. Umar Al-Ashqar, dean of the Faculty of Islamic Law, at al-Zarqa’ University in Zarqa, Jordan wrote that "Paradise is something of immense value; a person cannot earn it by virtue of his deeds alone, but by the Grace and Mercy of Allah." [19] This stance is supported by hadith: according to Abu Huraira, Muhammad once said that "None amongst you can get into Paradise by virtue of his deeds alone ... not even I, but that Allah should wrap me in his grace and mercy.

Grace is the love that never faileth!

Grace has been defined as the outward expression 

of the inward harmony of the soul.

--William Hazlitt

 Religion in its humility restores man to his only dignity, 

the courage to live by grace.

--George Santayana

 Courage is grace under pressure.

Ernest Hemingway

 Grace is the beauty of form under the influence of freedom.

--Friedrich Schiller

a wild-life painting by Eva-Maria

Faith is a living, daring confidence in God's grace, so sure and certain that a man could stake his life on it a thousand times.

--Martin Luther

 Learn to... be what you are, and learn to resign with a good grace all that you are not.

--Henri Frederic Amiel

 Grace is available for each of us every day - our spiritual daily bread - but we've got to remember to ask for it with a grateful heart and not worry about whether there will be enough for tomorrow.

Whatever we are waiting for - peace of mind, contentment, grace, the inner awareness of simple abundance - it will surely come to us, but only when we are ready to receive it with an open and grateful heart.

 --Sarah Ban Breathnach

Warmly---------

Eva-Maria