When you start learning about faith, it tends to look light and fluffy, like everyone else. It is an image that sits up high and tries to resemble those around you. For years I allowed other people to decide what faith looked like to me.

This month’s affirmation is faith. It is the complete trust or confidence in someone or something. We all have faith in something.

My faith is in Jesus as the Son of God. Every day it looks different.

I admit in the beginning it was small and could barely be seen. It blended in with the backdrop. It wasn’t trying to stand out or stand up. It just was.

What does your faith look like?

Give it. Get it.

In Destiny’s Dilemma, Zo is very good at dispensing grace to those she thinks deserve it. It is when she comes up against someone she thinks does not deserve her grace that the valve turns off. We do that sometimes. God’s grace doesn’t come with strings.

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith–and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God. (Ephesians 2:8)

Grace can come at us sideways. When we are least expecting it, it showers us with surprise. In my novel Destiny’s Dilemma, one of the characters is utterly undone, when he receives grace. He is a bigot who finds himself at the mercy of African Americans. He is surprised by the grace they give him.

Many times it is hard for us to accept grace because we feel we have not earned it. Grace is not earned.

Remember when you give it. Grace is not given to those who deserve it.

It is the thing we need the most, yet most of us are very poor at extending it. This month’s word means getting what we do not deserve.