The greatest gift you can give a family is grace.  Whether birth or step, family needs an unending supply of grace.

Grace cannot stand without love, coming down like beams of light into the heart of one who is to give it away.   It does, it must, come down from heaven because grace is counter intuitive to our human nature.

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Grace, sweet Grace comes in, full of light, love, and joy. Lifting the shawl from her shoulders, Grace, she wraps me in light, and whispers, “It will be all right.”

Leaning my head against the doorframe of the kitchen I release a sigh.  “Breathe” grace whispers again, and again my breath and my soul exhale.

Charis, Grace.

Grace is motivated by love.

Grace, authored by Christ, and written on our heart.

Grace renews a relationship.

Grace restores the offender in love.

Grace is true love’s gift.

Doc gives grace to me, always looking for the best in me, giving words of affirmation, words of life – grace.  Even when we are standing at right angles to one another   in disagreement, there is grace. There is thankfulness for each other, for our love –Euchristos.

It is not easy to be a stepfamily; one must develop a thick hide, and tender grace to endure.

I give these children, birth and step, grace; and, they will never fully understand the gift they are given, until, one day, they give that gift to another.

“Who would ever know the greater graces of comfort and perseverance, mercy and forgiveness, patience and courage, if no shadows fell over a life?”

Ann Voskamp

Grace and relationships, they go hand in hand; and, one is incomplete without the other.

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And these children, and their dad, are where I now make my home.  These children, who I never pressed into the world; but, I share in parenting now press into them, my gift of grace, praying that without words, they will see the gift and graciously give it away.

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Diane W. Bailey is the founder of The Consilium – an online community of wisdom and purpose for women over 45 years of age. She is a published author. Her books include String of Pearls – From Tears to Treasure, and 30 Days To A Better Stepfamily. She creates her own line of precious metals bracelets. Diane lives in the Deep South with her husband Doc. Together they have created a stepfamily, each having two stepchildren and two birth children, and share three grandchildren, one black lab named Charlie and one long haired tabby cat named Lil Girl. Diane’s passion is to encourage women to be all God has created them to be by pressing past fear and daring to live life as an adventure. Some of her life adventures include traveling to Israel, speaking, entrepreneurship and backyard farming with Doc. She loves Gumbo, fried shrimp and seeing all sunsets across water.

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