Blog May 2026

Grace

Dear St Mark’s and Friends,

I hope you are well.

I love spring, and for us in the UK May is often the month where we look forward to being reacquainted with our good friend the warm sun. But, if I can take you back to May of old, during the study season of our lives, May meant exams, and for many of our 10-11year olds, 14-18year olds and students this is still the case. It is a stressful time where we feel like our whole lives make or break on whether we can remember that one detail to get that question correct or not. And whilst for many of us our lives no longer revolve around the academic year, in our adult lives we can feel a similar pressure with deadlines, job interviews and in our daily personal lives.

Fortunately, our identity and salvation as Christians isn’t rooted in our ability. Rather, God generously gives us the gift of grace. For many years I’ve not really understood what this meant, and to some extent I probably never will, as it is such a big gift. The Oxford dictionary definition of grace is:

“Favour, benevolence: As a quality of God: benevolence towards humanity, bestowed freely and without regard to merit, and which manifests in the giving of blessings and granting of salvation.”

My A level Religious Studies taught me that benevolence, or omnibenevolence, means all loving – (which, in itself sounds like an amazing quality for God to have), but grace is that step further, it is given freely to each of us without our having to do anything to earn it.

Whilst God is interested in our daily lives, God’s love and gifts to us aren’t dependent upon our grades, our ability to eloquently explain the periodic table or the case for His existence, or even our ability to cook the perfect roast dinner – He is interested in us. He did everything to have a relationship with us.  We are invited to accept that we can’t work our way into heaven but rather receive this gift that God offers us – by believing that God made the way to heaven possible (through Jesus’, death and resurrection) and invites us to say yes. In that moment we are offered grace, there is nothing we can do to earn it and there is nothing we can do to stop God showering it on us, but we do have to be willing to accept it.

So, this May, I encourage you to accept and enjoy this gift and to share this gift with others, Jesus came to give us life to the full (John 10:10). How will you live yours?

Cat Stinson