I need grace

like a punch in the hip, like a thorn in my side, like a hole in my hand

Sometimes grace feels like I'm flowing,
navigating smoothly and swiftly between the banks of the river:
feeling the freedom of movement, unencumbered by circumstances.

Sometimes grace feels clunky,
like I'm disoriented and bogged down,
not sure what day it is or what I'm supposed to be doing next.

Sometimes grace is annoying –
like an anxious dog barking and barking... at nothing;
a barometer of her family's emotional state.

I thought I knew what grace was. 
Isn't it represented by the moments in which everything falls together unexpectedly – in spite of my plans, in spite of my person?
But how many moments of mundanity, of confusion, even of pain, pull together and culminate in that shining event we all recognize as grace-filled?
Are those preceding moments not grace?

Was it not grace when the Lord Almighty knocked Jacob's hip out of joint? 
Or when Paul was given a messenger of Satan to be his inescapable sidekick?
Or when Christ was nailed full of holes?

Where does grace begin?
Where does it end?
Is it every moment, or merely in every moment?
Is there a difference?