Have you ever felt like life is sending you unexpected gifts and secret messages? We sure have! We're here, Carri Richard and Ebony Gilbert, to unpack a beautiful example where a seven-year-old video resurfaced with an incredibly timely message. This is a stunning illustration of the timelessness of grace. Join us as we talk about the power of Grace to perfect anything.
In our quest for understanding grace, we've discovered its incredible capacity to heal and transform lives. Much like time, grace can be immediate or stretch across an expanse, experienced in a fleeting moment or over an extended period. We dive into the power of perception and how our "grace glasses" can shape the meaning we assign to our experiences. Our ambition is to inspire you to identify and share the grace in your own life. So, buckle up and let's explore another view of grace together!
Have you ever felt like life is sending you unexpected gifts and secret messages? We sure have! We're here, Carri Richard and Ebony Gilbert, to unpack a beautiful example where a seven-year-old video resurfaced with an incredibly timely message. This is a stunning illustration of the timelessness of grace. Join us as we talk about the power of Grace to perfect anything.
In our quest for understanding grace, we've discovered its incredible capacity to heal and transform lives. Much like time, grace can be immediate or stretch across an expanse, experienced in a fleeting moment or over an extended period. We dive into the power of perception and how our "grace glasses" can shape the meaning we assign to our experiences. Our ambition is to inspire you to identify and share the grace in your own life. So, buckle up and let's explore another view of grace together!
Welcome to Grace Among Us, the podcast where we unearth the many faces and places of grace and share stories of the power of grace in our human lives. Our desire is that this will inspire you to see grace in your own life and share it with others.
Carri Richard:Hello, hello everybody, my name is Carri Richard. I'm a mindset coach. I help high- achievers make space and enjoy the ride. And I am here with one of my most favorite things to do is to speak with my dear friend, Ebony Gilbert that is, and we talk all around, all through and all about the topic of grace. So good afternoon, Ebony.
Ebony Gilbert:Good afternoon, Carri. I'm Ebony Gilbert and Carri's my dear friend and when I'm not trying to be a thought leader in a healthcare space, I hang out with Carri and you guys. So pretty excited to be here today, awesome. Well, what you want to talk about?
Carri Richard:You know I want to broach a subject about, we talk about grace all the time and it doesn't really play by human rules and one of human's rules, or human constructs, is time. So you know, I had an experience this last week. I am cleaning things up and I came across a video from seven years ago when I began this journey and I don't know, it was made as an exercise seven years ago.
Carri Richard:And as I watched this thing and I listened to the topic it was about, moving through a transition and as I heard it, it was like I had recorded it seven years ago for me to hear it now and I took that as Grace because I watched myself say, hey, this is what I would tell somebody do this, go, do this, be free, do this. And it was like I, I needed to hear that. So I consider that Grace. I really I have this image of grace, that it kind of it, you know, because I'm going to humanize it right now it like waits in the shadows with like all these gifts in its pocket and it's like, oh, the grace collects all these things and says, oh, wait till you see what I do with this and when I can open that idea up, that. Time and location are really irrelevant, and what we think is big and small and medium, like grace, does not play by those rules.
Ebony Gilbert:So full circle moment.
Carri Richard:Yeah, yeah.
Ebony Gilbert:Seven, no coincidence, right Seven years. Yes, exactly.
Carri Richard:So what do you think about that?
Ebony Gilbert:What was the advice? The advice Can you share?
Carri Richard:Yeah, it was. I've gone through a life transition as far as I've had, I don't know, I don't want to get too deep into it but I'm happy to.
Ebony Gilbert:What did it remind you of in the moment that you needed to hear and be reminded of, because you clearly knew it seven years ago.
Carri Richard:It reminded me that it always begins within, like if I'm searching for happiness, , if I'm searching for peace, if I'm searching for solution outside myself, waiting for something to come to me, like, go, be that thing, go, do that thing, go, do what you love, go. You know, it's kind of like the bottom line is, if you want a friend, be a friend, right. If you want this in your life, go be that. And it just it just reminded me. That's exactly, that's it.
Ebony Gilbert:I like it.
Carri Richard:I like it too.
Ebony Gilbert:So I have two unrelated thoughts but some kind of way they're tying together in my head. Can I share them with you?
Carri Richard:Yes, please.
Ebony Gilbert:So this "go, find it the reminders you had. So during the past seven years you've had the opportunity to exercise your faith.
Carri Richard:Yes, yes.
Ebony Gilbert:And not just your faith in God, but your faith in yourself Because, like you said, the it's in you, it's in you. It's still small voice in you that knows Go get it, make it happen. That was my first thought. My second thought was I can't remember exactly what you said. You said something to the effect If you want friends to be friendly. Did you say that? Did I make that up?
Carri Richard:up. If you want a friend, be a friend.
Ebony Gilbert:Okay, I thought I heard you say that. I've heard people say a lot more than usual in the last couple of weeks, probably because of all the stuff going on in the world that hurt people, hurt people. (Carri -Yes, yes), and I have felt very unsettled about that statement, even though I've heard it before, because, along the lines of, if you want friends, be friendly if you, if you've been hurt, it seems like you want to operate in a space to not hurt. So when I think about grace and it doesn't operate in a linear time, fashion, for some reason, that phrase came to mind that I keep hearing that hurt people, hurt people, and I think that hurt people can be part of the healing and the way I'm tying this together in my head. I know it's all over the place with the timeline and no timeline and the way grace fits. When you put grace on top of anything, it can be perfected.
Carri Richard:Yes.
Ebony Gilbert:So if it needs to be the inverse in the case of hurt people, hurt people we need the inverse. We need hurt people to heal. It can do that. I t's the same friend, be friendly, grace can do that. Grace can make right, whatever it is, and it doesn't have to happen overnight.
Carri Richard:And I think a lot of times it doesn't happen overnight and we are in such a time where everything is at the speed of light and it's like if I don't see the result immediately, something's wrong. And and grace is like hold up, Hold up, Stay the course, you know, one foot in front of the other. And to your point. I know that statement hurt people, hurt people and I would extend that statement hurt people hurt people when they it's like they know not what they do. And when you lay grace on top of that, like when grace comes in, that's when it there's an ability to heal, that's when sometimes people become conscious of (Ebony - open my eyes) of.
Carri Richard:I don't want to perpetuate this. Yes, I'm hurting and I want to stop the cycle, but that, in my experience, only happens with grace.
Ebony Gilbert:It's no regard for time. And that doesn't just mean that it will take a long time. That means it can happen in the step of a finger. It can happen in the blink of an eye.
Carri Richard:And what if it doesn't? What's the next step?
Ebony Gilbert:What do you get to exercise during that hallway period?
Carri Richard:That's the one. Yeah, it's that fate. Grace doesn't operate on my time, because if Grace operated on my time, you know I'd be doing whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted and everything. Just it's not how it works.
Ebony Gilbert:It'd be an incomplete equation. You don't know all the variables.
Ebony Gilbert:(Carri - That's fair, yeah that's very fair, yeah), your time can't take into consideration all the things that go into this situation. You don't know what's going to happen tomorrow. You don't know. I imagine that you and I, possibly together or separately, will take a look back at some point in the future to our first podcast and we will listen to some of the things we said and we'll be reminded of the things that were going on in that moment that still apply today, and we'll be able to see how Grace has shown up all along the way, somewhat of the experience you had and we'll hear exactly what we need to hear. That happens to me now Every now and then I'll go back and listen. I'm like, oh, that was good, Carri, that was good. I needed to hear that today.
Ebony Gilbert:And, the interesting thing, I was watching something on TV. I watch a lot of stuff on TV having to do with space and they define distance as time. They call it light years and a year in my mind is time. Light years is distance and I started thinking about the similarities between time and distance and how, what can seem literally a world away, you can still get a bird's eye view of it. With the right telescope, with the right lens, you can still see it and I feel like Grace gives us the lens not to see the clear picture of exactly what it is years away or whatever time and distance thing away, but it gives us the ability to see it. It gives us the ability to see how things are working.
Carri Richard:Yes, yes, does that make sense? It makes perfect sense. It absolutely makes sense. I love the whole time space, all that I say often, time and location are irrelevant.
Carri Richard:(Ebony - I've heard you say that), yeah, and I just saw something on NOVA about our brains, like how our brains work, and they were showing that we only see whatever you're look around right now, whatever you're seeing, you're truly only seeing 1% of that view through your retina and everything else gets filled in. Yes, so our perception is so powerful and if we put our Grace glasses on, if our perception is driven by faith, we literally see the world differently.
Ebony Gilbert:We get to assign meaning to what we're experiencing.
Carri Richard:Yes, yes.
Ebony Gilbert:What a gift, what a gift.
Carri Richard:Absolutely, (Ebony - that's good). So I want to go back real quick to - You said you talked about laying something on top. When you lay Grace on top of something, how it's perfected. So do you have an example of that?
Ebony Gilbert:It just makes things right, you know, and perfected sounds almost catchphrase cliche-ish. I'm not talking about perfection, but it makes it right. You know, if you ever like grappled with a situation that just felt wrong, you were wrong, the situation was wrong, you know, and then you, I've had this feeling where I felt like I was wrong. I recently had an encounter with some leaders where I had done everything I was told to do and I'm not used to getting in trouble, you know, it upsets me. The other thing I was supposed to do said all the things I was supposed to say just been going on for months and I got reemed out because the people, the person who was speaking with me, couldn't remember any of it. Had to take a deep breath, take a step back, come back the next day and say, well, this is what Grace did.
Ebony Gilbert:when I layered Grace on that situation. Without Grace, I'm angry, I'm pissed, I'm offended. How dare you? All those things. With Grace? Grace for the person, this is not your character. So something else is going on. I know you better than this. I can see past this moment. With Grace, I can give myself some grace, you know, and not beat myself up for messing up because Grace says this isn't who you are. Somewhere a mistake was made, but this isn't who you are Without Grace. You really jacked this up. This is an expensive mistake. Or, without Grace, defensive fight back.
Carri Richard:Exactly, and that's kerosene on on the fire.
Ebony Gilbert:Yeah, Throw a few on the fire and get back with it. With Grace, this person deserves to be heard and this is a good person who can hear me. This isn't who we are. With Grace, This is who I am. I didn't do this intentionally. There was no bad feelings, bad intentions. With Grace, we probably can get to even better product, because now we're both fully engaged and intentional about how we communicate with one another. So, going forward, we know we're not going to do this again because now we have a different level of intentionality. So Grace didn't perfect it, like I said the first time, but it made a bad situation an opportunity.
Carri Richard:I love that and in that, it is perfected, right? It could have gone down this road and who's served by that? Exactly where people are separated and there's, you know, in, there's just fight and the anger stays and blah, blah, blah. But it's perfected and there's solution. What I heard like one of the one of the greatest tools I have to open the door to grace, is curiosity. Just like you said, wow, this isn't, this isn't their every day, like I wonder what, I wonder what's going on? What's going on?
Ebony Gilbert:What happened? Yeah, what happened.
Carri Richard:And with with ourselves too. Yeah, that's a great example.
Ebony Gilbert:That's a this week example that was fresh on my mind, but I don't know. Grace allows us to come into this zoom meeting and talk about things that may not even be, that we may not even be fully convinced of in the moment, because life is lifey and by the time we meet at four o'clock or five o'clock or whatever time it is, the whole day has happened.
Carri Richard:Yeah.
Ebony Gilbert:So grace perfects the conversation from a very genuine, authentic perspective that we may have not been able to tap into outside of this segment.
Carri Richard:Exactly, grace is just walking along putting things in its pocket right. Oh wait till I see what I bring out here.
Ebony Gilbert:Because how often do we walk into this and we go - I don't have it today, but I'm going to reach down deep to see what comes up. And then there's a little cubby hole somewhere in your heart that says hey.
Carri Richard:That's the truth.
Ebony Gilbert:You do have it, yeah, so it perfects not that it's perfect, but it makes right, you know moments and situations and creates opportunities that otherwise wouldn't exist without the ability to see it through the lens of grace. Absolutely, and I'm so thankful for that. Thank God for grace.
Carri Richard:Amen, amen yeah.
Ebony Gilbert:And I want to go back and see something I said seven years ago.
Carri Richard:I'll tell you, I'll send you the video. It's funny. Let me see it it was like, I mean, it was emotional. It was like you blah, blah, blah and it was like I was talking to myself. I needed to hear that seven years later.
Ebony Gilbert:Do you journal?
Carri Richard:I journal. I do, Ebony. I have been journaling every day for 17 years and you know how it starts. "Dear God, good morning.
Ebony Gilbert:Have you gone back and read some of those?
Carri Richard:No, they're gone. I don't save them. Yeah, five thousand letters later. (Ebony - How about that)?
Ebony Gilbert:Yeah, how about that? So grace doesn't really care about our human timing, but it's always on time. That's the beauty of it.
Carri Richard:It's never late. That is exactly a fair statement Never late. True, yeah, never late, never lacking, always. It's always about solution, because it's rooted in love.
Ebony Gilbert:Always sufficient Something right there to be thankful for.
Carri Richard:Absolutely. This was good.
Ebony Gilbert:You think so? (Carri - I do) Okay.
Carri Richard:Yes, alright, anything else?
Ebony Gilbert:Grace out Grace out.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for joining us. If you enjoyed this episode, please let us know. We love to hear from you and share it with a friend. Also, please be sure to subscribe so you're notified when a new episode is posted. We hope you're leaving with another pointer to grace, a new perspective that will light it up in your own life. Until next time, be well, be bold, be kind to yourself and be on the lookout.