Grateful for Grace

by Dr. Amy Mathews-Perez

November is Gratitude Month at The Worthy Educator!

While I know a few ladies named Grace, and they are all great ladies, the grace I'm writing about today is the NOUN. Our friend Merriam-Webster has many definitions for this word, but I’m going to combine a few of them so we can all be on the same page: Grace: a temporary exemption, the disposition or act of kindness, the state of being considerate, thoughtful.

Hopefully, each person reading this has experienced grace in ways that you can remember and still appreciate. I want to touch base with you about what I call a “mini-epiphany”; an idea that comes to me out of nowhere and brings me relevant insight that impacts multiple areas of my life. Figuring out that I am grateful for grace was one of these mini-epiphanies. To be transparent, I have very limited attention, and I am constantly pinging between tasks, thoughts, ideas, reminders, reflections, planning, and “what if” in my mind. As a part of this messy thought process, I recently became disappointed about how many friends’ birthdays, anniversaries, and other celebrations I have missed. Why did I miss them? Tons of reasons, all of which could be justified, including reasons like this: it was too late in the evening to call or text, the embarrassment of being late to celebrate, the forgotten or ignored reminder to do it, the failure (again) to put it in my calendar as a recurring event, and the list could go on.

I was feeling guilty and telling myself that I am a less-than-stellar friend/sibling/coworker. I decided that late is better than never; late is better than the risk of the other person thinking I’m ignoring them or don’t care, so I texted a friend and celebrated a Twitter/X post that I had missed commenting on….and while this friend would never be mean or negative, she had every right to not respond to my text, make a joke about my lack of timeliness or just say, “Thanks.” However, within just a few minutes, this friend replied with this: “Thank you! 💙” It may seem silly, but that blue heart was forgiveness, appreciation, and kindness all wrapped into one emoji. That blue heart was grace being provided to me; it was grace I could see and feel.

After I took a few deep breaths and reflected on the wonderful blessing of this friendship, it dawned on me: How much grace have I been given that I haven’t seen? I am grateful for the grace I am given, both seen and unseen; known and unknown. I am grateful for the grace of friends and family that accept me and encourage me to be my quirky, forgetful, high energy, low memory self. I am equally grateful for the grace of people I may never meet or even see; grace that can include their choice to not respond to gossip or negativity that may involve my name, their effort to not point out every error I make - especially on social media, or the grace of their intention to support me, my work and my vision.

Being grateful for what you have may or may not be easy, but we all have visual reminders of reasons to have gratitude, such as not being the person who got COVID this time, not getting pulled over even though we know we were speeding, or watching our parents age. By taking the time to first realize what “could be" that would negatively impact me and then reflect on why I have not endured those things, I was awakened to the many forms of grace. Life gets busy, and it is easy (natural, sometimes automatic) to take grace for granted. 

In writing this, I wanted to share that the time, energy, effort, and intention that it takes to tap into gratitude for grace for things known and unknown, seen and unseen, is worth the positive change it can make in your heart and mind. I am grateful for grace.

Texas-born and raised, Amy Mathews-Perez recently retired from 34 years of serving public education. General Ed. Teacher, SLP, Diagnostician, SPED Supervisor, Principal, Assistant Principal, and a Director of Special Education are roles she’s held. She is the CEO of Making Education Special for All (M.E.S.A), an LLC dedicated to training, consultation, and speaking engagements that revolve around providing information, motivation, and insights on why and how to make education special for all stakeholders; turning conflict into collaboration. Her passions are communication, joy, authenticity, and empowerment. "Life is short but our influence is never-ending," and Amy is committed to connecting with others through service and collaboration. You can contact her via email here.

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