It’s pretty rare for a Facebook post to have more shares than likes, but that’s what the stats currently tell me about a post I made: As of now, there are 63 likes, but there are 113 shares.
I follow the MisterRogersQuotes handle on Twitter, so my screens receive daily quotes from Fred Rogers. I’m glad for that. Occasionally, I’ll screenshot one on my phone and then share it to Facebook also. That’s what I did last week.
He says,
“Some days, doing ‘the best we can’ may still fall short of what we would like to be able to do, but life isn’t perfect — on any front — and doing what we can with what we have is the most we should expect of ourselves or anyone else.”
In an screenshotted image, this simple but very helpful quote spread fast on Facebook. And I realized, people are really longing for this kind of grace, hoping to be in the presence of people who convey, “‘the best you can do’ is truly enough.” And, of course, we need to hear that we’re worth loving and are ourselves ‘enough’ even when ‘the best we can do’ falls short as well. This is true when circumstances inhibit us or when we fail. Our worth and acceptance need not be conditioned on ‘the best we can do.’ Worth and acceptance can be unconditional. This is grace.
It seems that a large and quick number of shares reveal that we need to hear this message again.
So I wonder, which ongoing stories in our lives need this posture from us?
Smuggling Grace 