The southern fundamentalist denomination I grew up in viewed women as second-class. Their contributions to church life were kept to the nursery and kitchen, baking cookies for Vacation Bible School, teaching the little kids’ Sunday School Classes, and instructing the high school girls on how to keep their private parts private. Women serving the Church fully was a non-issue, because they couldn’t.
I left that denomination in my twenties and joined the mainstream, United Methodist Church in my thirties. There, women serving the Church also was a non-issue, not because they couldn’t serve but because they served in all capacities. One of my first pastors was a woman. As time passed, I served in many capacities. Yet for whatever reason, I never prayed in public.
That came to an end years later when it was my turn to give the opening prayer in my first seminary class. “No,” I said to myself and almost dropped the course. “No” I didn’t think I could do it. “No” I was scared. “Yes” I was an accomplished speaker. “Yes” I had given academic papers at conferences across the globe. “Yes” My first book had been published a couple of years before, and I’d been sent on a national book tour. “Yes” I’d made more TV and radio appearances than I could count, including being a TV spokeswoman for L’Oreal and seen by thousands of women. Yes, yes, yes! But I wasn’t used to praying in public. No, no, no! This was God I was speaking to, in front of future pastors and church leaders no less—a situation far beyond the importance of presenting a research paper or promoting hair color to graying women.
While the other students had offered beautiful prayers without notes, I knew better. Over the next week I sweated out my prayer, with the intent of reading it. Surely, God would allow a wee grace to a deer in the headlights who needed a prompt. On the day of, holding the paper in my shaking hand, I asked everyone to bow their heads. As I looked down at what I’d written, I simultaneously laid the prayer on the lectern. When I opened my mouth, a prayer from my heart came out.
I have no memory of what I said, but I will never forget the feeling of God touching this trembling daughter on the shoulder and whispering, “Yes, you can! Now do it!”
This I’ve learned in the intervening years, is what I call a grace-gift, when God nudges us toward something new or answers a simple prayer for assistance.
Then there are what I’ve named grace-bolts, as when Paul was thrown to the ground by the Holy Spirit on his way to Damascus. They, like the mythical Thor’s lightning bolts, strike into the soul so deep one is never the same afterward.
In October 2013, twenty jet-weary United Methodist Women from the US emerged from the Harare, Zimbabwe airport for a three-week mission trip. Then we traveled by bus to Masvigo to spend ten days with our sisters at the Chisipiti United Methodist Church. Greeted with hugs and smiles, we soon bonded with the women we would come to know and love as sisters. Learning from and teaching each other about God’s ways.
One morning the women took us hiking up to visit the Great Zimbabwe, a UNESCO World Heritage site high above the ancient ruins of a thriving 9th - 15th century civilization. Despite my daily walk back home, I wasn’t in great shape. To be truthful, I was flabby. Never one to give up the possibility to visit a historical site, I pulled up my big-girl panties, scrambled over the boulders in the almost pathless trek, and made it to the plateau (1/4 mile straight up). As I reached its 3800 ft altitude my lungs screamed for oxygen.
Our Zimbabwe sisters reached the plateau first. While looking down at the magnificent plain below and the clear, blue-blue sky above they broke out singing “How Great Thou Art.” Some sang in English, some in Shona, their native language. The haunting African harmony wafted down the hill. When us US sisters reached them, we joined in. As I gasped out, “O Lord my (gasp) God (gasp), when I survey (gasp) . . . “ the blended African and Western harmonies praising God overwhelmed us. Many cried, some raised their hands to God, most of us did both. Clearly, God’s mighty arms were around our shoulders. Oh God, our God, how great you are!
Unlike grace-gifts, grace-bolts are few and far between. When they occur, the God’s great presence is visceral, palpable. When God strikes us out of the blue with bolts, it impacts us forever.
I encourage you to pay attention both to when God offers a gift and when the bolts fly. Both are given by a generous God, both feed our souls with God’s love, mercy and care, and both are necessary for our life in Christ. Both help us to realize grace when it happens. 
Want to know more about realizing grace? Join us on October 3rd, 2026 for our virtual day of Soul Care: Realizing Grace. REGISTER HERE
Grace and love,
- Karen Kaigler-Walker
Horizon Texas Conference Spiritual Growth & Soul Care Coordinator
* Selected portions from Grace, Actually: When God’s Hand is on Your Shoulder (in press, Wipf and Stock, to be published Spring 2027)
