I received a special message from Stina, as she informed me she would be embarking on the Virtue Challenge, committing from mid-year until Christmas. What more, she was going to send reflections to me personally – as a friend explaining her journey and with complete trust I would make good use of it. I was to find some beautiful way to share it with the public. I listened to her long voice note, as she explained her journey through the virtue of Gracefulness (no pun intended) – 15 minutes worth – nodding, smiling and just being present to her thoughts as I listened, friend to friend. Then I filed it away for a few days, as I gave myself time to question, “How do I share it with you all – the wider community?”
I realised what Stina shared was too precious to give you small sentences or hooks on social media and instead provide a blog of her full reflections, as a hope that you too can slow down and ‘listen’ as I had. Part of my prayer in this space is that we can appreciate longform media again to give more time to change our hearts, because a 1 minute video doesn’t reflect the effort required to implement virtuous habits, but reading a well articulated blog just might, as it slows us down to consider more.
Without further ado, here are Stina’s personal reflection of her week:
Week 1: Gracefulness
In the past when I’ve worked on this particular trait, I have made a conscious effort of thinking about my physicality, as in how I physically move in the world, how I might dress, how I might speak. This time I reflected on how gracefulness actually means ‘to be filled with grace’.
I really had to stop and think about what that actually meant for me. If I, instead of thinking about moving in a particular way, thought instead about breaking this word down, recognising that in order to be graceful, I actually need to be receiving God’s grace first – that though I am imperfect I must be filled by His grace. It’s His grace that makes my life full and makes me filled in any way to be able to maneuver in this world. And I think about the fact that the saints grew their capacity to receive God’s grace. I considered the way I received God’s grace might be the size of a teaspoon, whereas the way some of the saints receive God’s grace is more like a bucket! And so I learnt that my capacity to receive His grace only grows by my receptivity. It’s like a balloon: the balloon only becomes bigger the more that it gets filled.
And so I’ve really tried to hold on to that each day, really thinking about how I need to be filled with God’s grace. For that to occur, I need to be open. I have to clear whatever’s in my heart or in my mind that’s distracting and really focus on that relationship with Him, and make myself available to receive what God is gifting.
That’s been a really nice anchor point for the first week.
Having this anchor was really helpful to adjust the heart posture to be able to receive and then to move in the world through that, which naturally meant that I started easing into each day. And each day became slower. Intentionally I slowed things down, gave myself more time and space between appointments, between meeting with people, even in conversations just slowing things right down to allow for that “filled with grace” to be translated in some way, to be transmitted to others, and to receive others in that encounter that I had with them as well.
Stina shared with me personally that the Virtue Challenge has always been one of the greatest ways for her to grow as a person and a daughter of God. One doesn’t prepare for the Olympics in a month, nor have a Beethoven Sonata memorised in a week – all great things take time to cultivate. The Virtue Challenge is a deep, long commitment in our fast paced and erratic world, and it’s in long lengthy processes we have time to change.
The old wise saying of C. S Lewis comes to mind, “day by day nothing changes, but when you look back, everything is different.” As we move ahead to the next virtue in the next blog of this series I pray you are open-hearted to receive grace in the smallest ways through these words to then implement throughout your week and look back on this journey with delight by Christmas.
Stina Constantine
Founder of Virtue Ministry and keynote speaker
Grace Feltoe
Social Media Marketer and Administration Assistant