As I sat at the beginning of yoga class, the teacher read something inspirational from a book, and I  don’t remember anything about it except that it was about grace. When she finished, she asked us to close our eyes and ask  “What is grace to me, today?”

So I asked, and immediately heard, “Everything is all right.”

I wasn’t sure I heard right, so I asked, “Grace is – that everything is all right?”

“Grace is KNOWING that everything is all right.”

Not that everything is going to be all right, everything is all right.

EVERYTHING is all right.

Everything IS all right.

Everything is ALL right.

Everything is all RIGHT.

And, in the midst of peace, or in the midst of trouble and turmoil, I KNOW that everything is all right, and THIS is grace.

I have a Bible verse tattooed on my left upper arm, the culmination of 25+ years of being a conservative Christian, the last 12 of those years as an active member of the Christian Motorcyclists Association, where tattoos are common and grace abounds.

“I am saved by GRACE through Faith. It is God’s GIFT.” -Ephesians 2:8

I’ve heard a lot of definitions for the word grace and what it takes to be “saved”, but the only thing I really understood is that it is a gift. I got this tattoo only 4 years ago, when I was on my way out of a bad marriage and out of the CMA. I stopped going to church regularly a few months later.  As I freed myself from the dogmatism of the churches I had been in, I began to find more love, peace and compassion within myself, as well as great gratitude for grace.

I still pondered the meaning of grace. And many times I have wished I didn’t have this tattoo. But now, I know that everything is all right, and that THIS is my saving grace.

Let us be like little children, with simple faith, knowing that everything is all right.