During a recent conversation, a friend shared something tender and transformative: that in prayer, God had revealed to her that she is a Daughter of Grace. The phrase lingered in my heart, stirring reflection. What does it mean to live as a Daughter of Grace?
It means living beyond the ledger. It means receiving love not because we’ve earned it, but because Love Himself has chosen us. Grace, by its very nature, is unmerited. It doesn’t wait for us to get our lives right or prove our worth. Like the father in the prodigal son story, God runs to meet us while we’re still far off—hungry, broken, and unsure. This kind of grace feels scandalous, even unfair. Our wounds whisper that we must earn love, that we are unworthy. But St. Paul reminds us in Romans that we are loved not because we are good, but because God is.
To be a Daughter of Grace is to live in tension. The world teaches us to earn love, to prove our worth, to keep score. Even in faith communities, we sometimes see grace treated like a currency—dispensed cautiously, reserved for the deserving, withheld from the prodigal still covered in mud. But grace isn’t a transaction. It’s a gift. And gifts, by definition, are not earned.
Cheap grace, as Bonhoeffer warned, is grace without discipleship—mercy offered without transformation. But we must be careful not to confuse unconditional love with spiritual laziness. True grace is free, but it is never cheap. It cost Christ everything. The difference lies not in the price, but in the posture.
A Daughter of Grace doesn’t earn her place at the table. She receives it. And in receiving, she is changed—not by obligation, but by love. Her transformation is not the condition of grace, but its fruit. She doesn’t perform holiness to secure affection. She lives in holiness because she has been embraced.
To live as a Daughter of Grace is to walk with empty hands and a full heart. It is to stop bargaining with God and start receiving. It is to let go of performance and lean into mercy. It is to say, “I am hungry,” and trust that the Father is already running.
And when we do, we become vessels of that same mercy—extending grace not because others deserve it, but because we didn’t either. This is not cheap grace. This is costly love. And it is the only thing that can heal the world.
Smitten With Goodness 