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When you think of a timeless beauty, perhaps Grace Kelly comes to mind. The accomplished and beautiful actress has been upheld as a standard for poise, elegance, and style. In 1956, she married Prince Rainier Grimaldi III of Monaco to become Princess Grace of Monaco. Royalty suited her well.
I know another beautiful Grace who is not as famous as Princess Grace, but she is royalty as well—a child of the King.
When I was working as a features producer for the 700 Club, one of my first interviews was with a courageous double amputee named Gracie Rosenberger. Believe it or not, we went rock climbing together at an indoor gym. I figured if a double amputee could scale up a wall, I should be able to follow. Despite her physical obstacles, Gracie kept living to the fullest—rock climbing, skiing, and playing basketball with her husband and two boys.
In her wildest dreams, Gracie never pictured her life without legs. As a college music major in 1983, she had her sights set on Nashville and singing stardom. But that all changed one night when she fell asleep at the wheel. Her car slammed into a concrete abutment, flipped, and rolled into a gully. Her car burst into flames. Her legs were crushed and pushed over her shoulders.
“I remember thinking, I can’t move my body and I can’t get out of here,” Gracie says. “I was going to die unless the Lord intervened.”
She was rescued by some truckers who saw the accident. When she arrived at the hospital, she had lost so much blood that her blood pressure was 40 over 20. Three weeks later, she woke up in a hospital bed with searing pain and a broken body and soul.
As of this writing, Gracie’s had 72 operations, including the amputation of her right leg in 1991 and the left in 1995. There hasn’t been one day since the accident when Gracie hasn’t experienced physical pain. But she found the key to living with grace in Paul’s words in 2 Corinthians 12:9, “‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.” Gracie sees her weakness as an avenue for God’s grace to flood her life.13
With her husband, Peter, and sons, Parker and Grayson, Gracie has traveled to Ghana, West Africa, to provide prosthetic limbs for amputees. Gracie’s organization, Standing with Hope, offers the supplies and training necessary to build quality prosthetics, a gift that changes someone’s life forever. Gracie recalls,
While recovering from having my remaining leg amputated, I watched a documentary showing the plight of amputees in developing countries and instantly knew my calling. Lying in my hospital bed, I knew I would grab others by the hand and raise them up on a new limb…all so that I could tell them of the salvation of Jesus Christ and the grace of God that sustains me. Standing with Hope is more than just the name of the nonprofit organization I founded. It’s a description of my life.14
Gracie and Peter, who is a pianist and composer, have performed for President George W. Bush as well as dozens of U.S. senators and governors. One of their most moving performances was the groundbreaking ceremony for the new amputee-training center for military personnel who have lost a limb.
No one would have blamed Gracie if she had become bitter and resentful about her lot in life. But Gracie’s eyes sparkle, she’s quick to laugh, and her smile lights up a room. That kind of beauty can’t be found in an antiaging serum; it comes from deep within. When you learn to handle adversity with grace, you become a poster child for the fountain of youth.
You can’t package grace in a bottle. It’s a gift God gives freely to those who ask for it, not something that can be bought over the counter. The apostle Paul begins most of his letters with the words, “Grace to you.” Paul knew the value of grace and wished all his friends an abundance of it.
So how can you experience more grace in your life?
Do you beat yourself up over past mistakes? Do you replay scenes in your mind of your regrets and failures? I love the story my husband tells about a date that went wrong before he ever met me. He told his date a joke that bombed; she didn’t even smile. After the date, he kept kicking himself for telling the joke. As he talked to his mom about it for the umpteenth time, she punched him in the arm.
“Ow. What was that for?” James asked.
“Stop beating yourself up about the date. You’re making yourself miserable and starting to make me miserable too. It’s over.”
Can you relate? It’s inevitable you’ll make a mistake or two along the way. The question is how you deal with your failures. Learn from your mistakes, ask forgiveness of God and others if necessary, and move on. Give to yourself the grace you’d offer others. Remember the powerful words of Romans 8:1-2, “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death.”
If you want to age prematurely, here’s a formula to follow: criticize others, complain often, and regularly hold grudges. When we don’t extend grace to others, we cut off the flow of God’s grace into our own life. I’m thankful, on the other hand, that when we show grace to others, we open the door for all the blessings that accompany grace.
My mother is one of the most gracious women I know. She always sees the best in people and rarely speaks ill of anyone. As a result, she is well-loved and appreciated by her family, friends, clients, and community. As it says in Ecclesiastes 10:12, “Words from a wise man’s mouth are gracious, but a fool is consumed by his own lips.”
Need more grace in your life? Begin by giving it away.
To fill in the lines and imperfections of your face with grace, apply moisturizer with sunscreen or a makeup primer before putting on your makeup. This first layer will help create a smooth canvas and prevent foundation from caking into crevices.
Thought for Rejuvenation
Read this Scripture aloud from Isaiah 33:2,
O LORD, be gracious to us;
we long for you.
Be our strength every morning,
our salvation in time of distress.
Now personalize it in prayer, “O Lord, be gracious to me; I long for You. Be my strength every morning, my salvation in time of distress.”
Act of eXpression
Extend grace to each person you come in contact with today. If someone cuts you off on the road, resist the urge to blurt out, “Idiot driver!” If your coworker speaks rudely to you, chalk it up to a stressful day for her and pray for her.