Grace Along the Ligurian Sea

Lisa and I found a small cairn while walking along the shore in Cinque Terre last week. This carefully balanced stack of smooth stones felt like a gift left behind for whoever might happen upon it next.

We have been working on a book about grace over the past several years. Pathways of Grace is scheduled for release in June 2027. If someone had asked me before we began the project to define grace, I likely would have started with forgiveness. After all, many of us who grew up in the church learned to think of grace primarily as God’s undeserved favor shown to sinners. That understanding remains deeply important to me.

But then I spent several years immersed in stories of grace.

As part of a large research project funded by the John Templeton Foundation, doctoral students interviewed Christians from many traditions about how they experience grace in everyday life. Later, as Lisa and I began writing this book, I found myself returning to those interviews repeatedly.

Certainly some people spoke of forgiveness and redemption. But many others described moments that might seem unrelated to grace at first glance: a sunset, a kind word from a stranger, a season of suffering, the beauty of a forest trail, the presence of a friend who sat quietly through grief, a moment of paying attention that changed everything.

Again and again, people described grace not only as pardon received but as gift encountered.

That’s what I found myself thinking about when I saw this cairn.

Someone took the time to gather these stones, balance them, and leave them behind. It wasn’t necessary. It accomplished nothing measurable. Yet it offered a moment of beauty to two strangers from the other side of the globe.

Perhaps grace is often like that. Not always dramatic. Not always theological. Not always arriving in the forms we expect.

Pathways of Grace is written primarily for those in the helping professions—counselors, psychologists, spiritual directors, pastors, chaplains, and others who spend their days tending to the lives of others. Helpers are often trained to diagnose problems, formulate treatment plans, identify spiritual struggles, and teach new skills. All of these are important, so in graduate school and professional training we spend far more time discussing theory and technique than grace. And yet grace may be among the most important gifts we offer.

Grace comes in moments of attentive presence, tears noticed, deep acceptance of broken humanity, surprising kindness, suffering shared. The more I immersed myself in these accounts of grace—and the more Lisa and I reflected on them together—the more convinced we became that helping others begins with learning to notice grace ourselves.

Grace is larger than forgiveness, though never less than forgiveness. It meets us in redemption, certainly, but also in beauty, kindness, suffering, and attentive presence.

Sometimes grace is a small stack of stones beside the sea, quietly reminding us that gifts are everywhere for those willing to notice.

---

Subscribe

---

This reflection grows out of themes explored in Pathways of Grace, a forthcoming book by Mark and Lisa McMinn on grace and the helping professions (IVP Academic, June 2027).