by the grace of god. i remember being a young student at st. pious  x school and the then principal, was speaking to the entire school and she used the term by the grace of god. i didn’t know what that meant, i was only in the 2nd grade but something about grace and god stood out. later that night i asked my dad about it and he took the time to explain it in a way a curious 7-year old could understand.

as i got older i found that “by the grace of god” and “in the end, only kindness matters” have been quotes (mantras if you will) that i find myself falling back to time and time again. another is “kindness is possible even when fondness is not”.

the last 48-hours, as i have had some freedom to try to catch up on the bloggers and tumblrs that i follow, it struck me how many are having moments of doubt, self-recrimination, anger and every other visceral emotion that at times, can overwhelm and challenge even the strongest individual. one in particular, struck me as she was having a good old rage in her post and yet she ended it with asking the hater’s and the self-righteous judger’s that tend to leave her hate mail to give her a break. she’s having a rough go of it. it was clear from her writing that she’s in a lot of pain. and has been. she just needed to vent in the anonymity that the blogosphere offers.

it made me pause. have i been as kind as i can be even as my own world seems to be pushing towards an implosion? we all have our own stories, our own issues and we are all human with feelings and the capacity to love greatly and hurt deeply. and then i remember, that by the grace of god i go and truly, in the end, only kindness matters.