Clearly the universe wanted me to have lots of free time last week. And the week before.

Or maybe there’s some sort of lesson to be learned about patience (of all things!) when things go awry and then keep going in that general direction.

Or maybe it’s just true that when it rains it pours.

I wrote about my 10-days-of-not-writing-because-life-is-filled-with-too-many-problems, back on that one day that I was actually able to write. The one single day in the past couple of weeks that I actually had a working computer.

I’ve not written since because the universe was clearly not finished with whatever it wanted to teach me. I’m either an incredibly slow learner, or I’d been skipping class for the semester and had some major catching up to do in “problems and how to deal with them 101”.

So yeah, problems.

Computer problems mostly.

To be perfectly honest, I have this love/hate relationship with computers, and technology in general. Because technology is wonderful and amazing and does so much good. But then, sometimes, technology just stinks.

I mean, you would think that after two separate computer crashes within the space of a week, I’d get a break, right?

Wrong.

Sometimes when things start to go south, they enjoy the trip so much, they just keep on going that way.

Yep, it’s true. Sometimes when it rains it does pour.

I mean, it was kind of comical. In hindsight, of course. Everything can sort of be comical in hindsight. Well, not exactly everything, but a lot of things that aren’t funny at all at the time can become very humorous stories to tell later.

Funny later, but not at all funny when they’re happening.

Of course, there are silver linings. Blessings. Everyday grace right there even in the middle of everyday mess, if you look for it. This, this I tell myself daily – look for the grace – it’s there, even if you don’t think it is. Maybe especially when you don’t think it is.

Even in the midst of the most horrid couple of technologically challenging weeks.

Grace. If you notice.

And I did notice. Okay, I’ll be honest and admit that it wasn’t my first instinct. Who in the world pronounces grace-is-here when they’re in a great big mess? So, no, I didn’t say it when my computer died for the first time. Or for the second time. Or for the final – and sadly, fatal – time.

But yeah, sometime during the waiting-to-see-if-I-lost-all-my-data time, I sort of did think that maybe, just maybe, I should look not at my difficulties, but at the gifts that I’ve been given in the midst of – maybe even because of – them.

And it turns out, there always are some.

For one, you do get to appreciate the people who help you out of the mess.

Computer technicians who not only know their stuff, but know how important my stuff is to me. Salvaged data from a hard drive literally beyond repair. The owner of the shop staying late to finish the job. Angels under the moniker of repair tech.

Grace.

So now I am up and running, able to write and to publish and to finally watch YouTube on a laptop and not on my little cellphone screen.

Does that count as everyday grace? I think so. Because honest? It is.

Little things. Or, in the case of a monitor versus a cellphone, big things.

Grace things.

Some people might say that these things – computer techs who do a good job, full-sized screens on which to watch videos, and even the time that I suddenly found myself with nothing to do and so spent planting my garden, knitting, reading, cooking and (yep, even this) cleaning, – isn’t really “grace”. I suppose that this is because seeding lettuce is not holy enough to be considered grace. Nor, probably, is planting thyme or basil or picking asparagus and steaming it for dinner.

But grace doesn’t exist in any one place, and holiness is not exclusive to the pew or pulpit.

All the world is holy ground. The garden, the stove, the neighbor’s yard – these too are pew and these too are places where the Divine invites us to notice Presence.

Grace can be found pinning laundry on a line just as much as it can be found penning a line of prose.

Grace is not limited to the times of plenty, times of ease, or times of obvious success. Grace is always and every day and only when we stop looking for it, do we stop finding it.

We think that we need to look hard to find grace in the mundane and in the messy, but we don’t need to look hard at all – we just need to look.

To notice what is here. To notice now. This moment, this breath, this person, this space.

To notice now, be in our now, is not complicated. It’s not hard. We only make it so. We live too much in yesterdays, or tomorrows, and barely find time for todays.

But grace? It is here today. This moment. This space. This instant. This very breath.

If you look.

Me? I’ve had a couple of hard weeks’ worth of troubles. Maybe you have too. And maybe your troubles have been a bit more troubling than mine. But even so, there’s grace.

I’m sure of it.

If we just look.

~xo,
LuAnne