John Newton’s hymn is so popular that as a longtime church musician, it seems overplayed. It reminds me of dandelions. Dandelions overpopulate North American landscapes in most gardener’s opinions. Although it’s a cousin of the majestic sunflower, in suburbia lawns it’s considered a weed. They pop up in abundance and most of the time, in the wrong place.

Although the flower stage is pretty, it’s a little uninspiring compared to the second, more intricate stage of the plant. As life would have it, I contemplate things like this and try to make connections. It seems to me that grace and dandelions have a lot in common. They both appear unannounced and are free of charge. When we are not shiny and Instagram golden like the flower-stage of the dandelion and stripped to fine yet strong threads of the plant’s second stage, we are light enough to be tossed about by the wind. The seeds we sow inspire the next generation. 

What I come away with after this all? When we are at the end of our capacity to be a gorgeous flower bursting with color, when we shrink and collapse and then expand into a transparent version of ourselves, that’s when we become real. Light can shine through us to those around us, even in the darkest of hours.