The Unseen Hand

A reflection on grace and gratitude

It's Karkidakam in Kerala, the last month of the Malayalam calendar. A month of living simply, eating food like medicine, and drawing closer to God.

In many homes, lamps are being lit in the evening, and the Adhyatma Ramayanam is being read once again.

Growing up, I knew it simply as tha Ramayana maasam (month). I knew the rituals and stories. But this year, a question has been sitting with me.

What is grace?

As a Hindu, I have always heard the word kripa—God's grace.

I have often felt that I have carried it throughout my life.

Not because I am special or because I have done anything to deserve it.

In fact, when I look back, I don't see a life where every prayer was answered or every door opened.

I have seen closed doors and missed opportunities.

I have seen disappointments and heartbreaks.

I have seen grief and personal losses.

I remember those moments when I sat with tears in my eyes and asked, "But why me?"

If grace meant that life would always go the way I hoped, I don't think I could say I have lived under God's grace.

There's a story from the Christian tradition that always comes to mind when I think about grace. A man looks back on his life and notices that during his hardest moments, there is only one set of footprints in the sand. He wonders why God abandoned him. God replies, "Those were the times I carried you."

Whenever I think about grace, I find myself returning to that image.

Years ago, a friend said something that has never left me.

"God gives a burden because that person is capable of carrying it."

I remember wondering if that could really be true. Because there were times I didn't feel capable at all.

There were burdens that felt too heavy.

And days when I didn't know how I would take the next step.

And yet... I did.

Strength seemed to arrive when it was needed.

Sometimes through the kindness of another person.

Sometimes through an unexpected opportunity.

Sometimes through an inner peace I couldn't explain.

And sometimes, simply through the courage to wake up and try again.

Maybe that is what grace is.

When I look back now, I realize God didn't always give me what I asked for. At the time, I thought those unanswered prayers were disappointments. But in hindsight, I can see they were part of a bigger picture—one that was better than anything I had imagined for myself.

For example, I used to think life would have been very different if my father hadn't chosen to leave his job and move to our village while I was still in school. The whole course of my life would have changed. The family I have today—the people I love most—might never have existed. Looking at my life now, I wouldn't want to change a thing.

So I feel grace is not a promise that life will be free from suffering. It is the assurance that we will not walk through it alone.

Perhaps kripa is not seen in a life without storms.

It is seen in the One who walks beside us through every storm and carries us when we are too tired to go on.

As I read the Ramayanam this Karkidakam, I don't see a story where everything went according to plan.

I see exile, separation, loss, waiting and anguish.

Yet through it all, dharma remained, and the Divine never left the story.

Maybe our lives are not so different.

We may not understand every closed door or every unanswered prayer.

But one day, looking back, we may discover what I am only beginning to understand now—

that grace was never the absence of hardship.

It was the unseen hand that carried us through it.

Perhaps that is why we return to the Ramayanam every Karkidakam. It doesn’t promise a life without sorrow. Instead, it reminds us that even through sorrow, we are never beyond the reach of grace.

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