Braden Speed + Grace

One morning a couple of weeks ago, Kam and I and the boys went for a walk on the trail by their house. Tyson, who had turned 4 the day before, wanted to run with me, so we ran. And he was super impressive! Tyson’s little legs ran way farther than Kam and I thought they would.

Soon, 21 month old Braden wanted to join us, so holding Tyson’s hand on one side and Braden’s on the other (grandma heaven!), we started to “run.” I told Tyson we needed to run at Braden’s speed since he was the littlest with the littlest legs, and so that’s what we did. Braden isn’t quite to the running stage yet, but it was really impressive at how fast those little legs could walk and how far he “ran.” I was also impressed with how patient Tyson was with Braden and how he kept encouraging him when it would’ve been easy for him to get impatient and want to just run ahead of us.

It got me thinking…

It’s so important for us to meet each other where we are with our current strengths, weaknesses, challenges, and experiences. We all come from different backgrounds and experiences, and so we look at and approach things in different ways. We could also be more patient with each other (and ourselves!) as we try and navigate life the best ways we know how.

And most of us are really just trying to do our best.

God does this with us—he meets us where we are, at our current speed, and he’s super patient with us as we stumble, fall, get right back up and go again, stumble, fall, get right back up and go again…over and over and over again…

I love this quote from Emily Belle Freeman’s amazing book, Grace Where You Are:

Yes, the Lord will meet you where you are, as you are, but He doesn’t intend to leave you there… The Lord will take you to places you could never go on your own.

And he’ll help you accomplish things you could never do on your own.

This is grace.

I know I need to do better at giving others more grace as they’re navigating their own paths.

And I especially need to give myself more grace—all the time. Because I know I can sometimes be my own worst critic.