When I was in college a friend told me that one of her friends thought I got everything I wanted. She didn’t even know me, but had watched from afar my entrance and acceleration in my sorority, work on the school newspaper, internships at top daily newspapers and a gang of people to hang with. This woman had long-distance envy, and I, with my sinful gloat coat that all strong black women wear because we do things that people should admire, got a kick out of her envy, thinking, “Dang, it’s too bad she ain’t me.”

I was not gracious, if only in my mind, and didn’t even think about any notion of grace, that that’s what I was getting, unmerited favor from God, the only reason for my success and definitely not a reason to be envious of me.

Grace is something you get that you didn’t deserve. No amount of work or contacts or beauty or degrees or intelligence can garner grace. Grace is given, never earned. I didn’t realize that in college and neither did my friend’s friend. If we both had, neither of us would have focused on me but on God and been in awe Him.

Now I recognize His grace. I see it with having Flynn, a man after God’s heart, who loves me unconditionally—in spite of me, because of me, and he loves the way I love him. I see grace with my 10 close friends, having more than the average woman, who would take a hit for me and always believe in me. I see grace with my three healthy, happy and rambunctious kids. I see grace each day I have the incredible and do the impossible.

On this Labor Day, as we celebrate workers, I celebrate the greatest worker of all time—Jesus Christ—whose grace works in me, first, unto salvation, and, second, to have and do everything else in my life. When I want to murmur and complain when things go “wrong” and gloat when they go “right” I will meditate on the good Philippians tells us to, and God’s grace will stand above them all.

Copyright 2010 by Rhonda J. Smith