This is Max Lakato, grace.

The bank gives us a grace period.

The seedy politician falls from grace.

Musicians speak of a grace note.

We use the word for hospitals, baby girls, kings, and pre-meal prayers.

We talk as though we know what grace means.

You turn the page of your Bible and look at the words.

You might as well be gazing at a cemetery. Lifeless, stony, nothing moves you, but you don't

dare close the book, no surrey. You dare not miss a deed for fear that God will erase your name.

If that's your feeling, grace can speak to you. God's grace has a drenching about it. It comes after you.

It rewires you. From insecure to God's secure, from regret riddled to better because of it,

from afraid to die to ready to fly. As Paul said in Galatians 2.20, it's no longer I who live,

but Christ who lives in me. This is Max Lakato. You might call it

a heart transplant.