The concept of grace can mean many things. In nature, for example, there's the way a flock of mallards, early in the morning, circles for a landing on a marsh pond. As the ducks come in low over the water, with wings cupped, you can see every bird gliding together in a moment of perfect, unstudied symmetry. I've also seen this kind of natural instinctive grace in a deer running through the woods. Suddenly all the barriers of underbrush or fallen trees will seem to vanish in a blur of speed and agility that no Olympic hurdler could ever hope to match.

Then there's the grace of a ballerina, perhaps having to do with a certain style, form, and rhythm that capture the essential, inherent beauty of her art. Or, in another way, grace could characterize the manner in which a courageous individual comports himself or herself when meeting a particularly difficult trial in life. I knew a woman who, for me, epitomized this steady courage and who taught me many valuable lessons through the strength and quiet poise of her example.

Also, there are the various theological implications of grace. They can have different shades of meaning and significance to people. But grace could be represented by something as simple as a family gathered for the evening meal, where there's a pause in the day's clamor for a few words of thanks to God for His blessings. Or, from a Bible student's perspective, grace might be thought of in a traditional Scriptural context as describing how the love of God reaches directly into the lives of men and women.

One Bible concordance, for example, defines grace as "the free mercy of God, or the enjoyment of his favour." ^{Cruden's Complete Concordance.} Another concordance points to the New Testament use of the word in its original Greek form as charis, meaning graciousness, and indicates that this represents "the divine influence upon the heart, and its reflection in the life." ^{Strong's Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, Greek Dictionary of the New Testament, p. 77 .}

For any follower of Christ Jesus, the spiritual meaning of grace as used in the Bible is profoundly significant in showing how Christian life is to be lived in God's service and for the benefit of mankind. And this grace also has a direct relationship to how, through spiritual means alone, an individual can face the challenges of human existence—the sin, sickness, grief, loneliness—and come through into the light of healing.

In this sense, grace isn't only gaining a feeling of something good, even Christly, within us. That certainly does happen. Yet grace also has a recognizable, practical effect evidenced in the renewal of our lives and the healing of our bodies, as well as in the transformation of our thinking. This kind of grace makes new men and new women in Christ. It's what Jesus was proving throughout his ministry.

Mary Baker Eddy, who founded the Church of Christ, Scientist, saw the dramatic result of God's grace in her own life. Through the power of divine Love, she was freed from longstanding physical debility and given the strength to go forward during the forty years following in her remarkable work of preaching, teaching, writing, healing, and establishing a worldwide religious movement. And from her own experience, Mrs. Eddy came to see clearly that grace doesn't exist in some sort of spiritual vacuum, coming in and out of human life somehow independent of one's individual efforts and motives and struggles. Grace isn't something unrelated to one's own search for spiritual truth or to one's own humble striving to come closer to the reality of God. Nor is it unrelated to one's willingness to yield to God's purpose regardless of how closely held one's personal opinions or desires may be.

So it was undoubtedly based on her own experience and what she witnessed in the mission of her Church that Mrs. Eddy would later write of grace in terms of its practical effect. Pointing to the healing work she saw her students achieving with serious cases of physical illness as well as with what she called "desperate cases" of sin, Mrs. Eddy observed, "All this is accomplished by the grace of God,—the effect of God understood." ^{Christian Science versus Pantheism, p. 10.}

Here, grace is also closely tied to understanding. As the New Testament states, "Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord." ^{II Pet. 1:2.}

In Christian Science, spiritual progress and healing are directly related to the individual's growing knowledge of divine reality, of the nature of God and His creation, and of the relationship of man to God. And to the degree we realize our actual selfhood to be the spiritual expression of God, divine Truth and Love, we begin to break free from whatever would seem to deny Truth and Love, including disease, sin, or any other misapprehension of our being.

The regeneration that comes through grace and spiritual understanding follows the Christ way of salvation. The saving presence of Christ, Truth, is real, practical, and always at hand. In the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mrs. Eddy writes of this unparalleled power: "Grace and Truth are potent beyond all other means and methods." ^{Science and Health, p. 67.}

Grace, spiritual understanding, healing—they are inseparable. And they are available through Christ to any man or woman humbly striving to follow the will of God.

William E. Moody