For a few years, our oldest daughter taught high school Spanish in South Carolina and spent several of her summers in a Central American country honing her Spanish skills while doing work she loved. As it turns out, she fell in love with more than the work. She was also quite smitten with a fine young fellow there, a local by the name of Bayron. Together, they had the audacity to decide to get married and are now living happily ever after with their two children in a place far, far away.

When the nuptials rolled around—also in a place far, far way—I learned that, as father of the bride, I was expected to give a stirring toast at the reception. It dawned on me that perhaps it would be a nice and friendly gesture to local residents, who would far outnumber our family and friends able to make the trip, if I gave it mostly in Spanish. Trouble is, my Spanish goes no further than what’s on the menus in most Mexican restaurants.

Enter Google Translate. I composed a paragraph or so of niceties, asked Google to turn it into Spanish, and was quite pleased with myself. I even asked one of the groomsmen at the wedding, a lifelong speaker of the language, to look it over for me. He gave it a thumbs-up and encouraged me to go through with it.

A Spanish speaker will tell you that the word for “year” and the word for “anus” sound remarkably similar, distinguished only by a small nuance in pronunciation. No one thought to tell me, however. Thus, as the reception crowd listened semi-intently, I cheerfully and quite obliviously wished my daughter and her new husband “many anuses of happiness.” 

I’m pretty sure that’s not suggested in the wedding chapter of any etiquette book, no matter the language.

While by most measures this was a bit of a faux pas, my memories of the incident are entirely good, at least in part because I had absolutely no idea what I’d done. The good people of the town (and it seemed like most of them turned out for the event) gave absolutely no indication that I had flubbed that part of the toast. I heard no guffaws, saw no rolled eyes, and received no glares. No one stormed out. I didn’t know what I’d said until the pastor who officiated the wedding, an American who’s lived there for decades, informed me later with a chuckle.

Either everyone was paying no attention—or I was the beneficiary of a most excellent demonstration of grace.

I’m going with the grace option. Grace is a concept I’ve come to love, maybe because I’m finally beginning to understand how much I need it. It can be a little slippery to define because all we have are words, but it seems to begin with some kind of favor, kindness and forgiveness you didn’t really do anything to deserve. And it changes you a little each time you encounter it.

A lot of people way more experienced with the idea of grace than me have taken a swing at defining it, and some of their thoughts are truly beautiful. “Grace is Christianity’s best gift to the world,” says writer Philip Yancey, “a spiritual nova in our midst exerting a force stronger than vengeance, stronger than racism, stronger than hate.” He adds, “It contains the essence of the gospel as a drop of water can contain the image of the sun.”

Grace has to do with forgiveness, and its recipients can’t help but be moved by it. The band We the Kingdom sings of it as “the only thing that ever really makes me want to change.”

And its unique beauty is that you don’t earn it, which is why it’s the foundation of the Christian faith. We also can’t force it into our own lives, says pastor and author Nadine Bolz-Weber. “We must tell it to each other,” she says. 

A crowd of folks in Central America told it to me at my daughter’s wedding, and I’ll never forget it.