Quotes about Grace

I do not at all understand the mystery of grace - only that it meets us where we are but does not leave us where it found us. It can be received gladly or grudgingly, in big gulps or in tiny tastes.

Mercy is radical kindness. Mercy means offering or being offered aid in desperate straits. Mercy is not deserved. It involves absolving the unabsolvable, forgiving the unforgiveable.

Do you still believe that I am the Resurrection and the Life? Even when you don't get what you want? Even when nothing makes sense?

I hoped her life would turn topsy-turvy enough to get her attention. Topsy-turvy is often a symptom for the presence of God—the last become first, the hungry are fed, the obnoxious are welcomed.

Sigh: who was it who said that to get into heaven, you needed a letter of recommendation from the poor?

What good people can do in the face of great sorrow. We help some time pass for those suffering. We sit with them in their hopeless pain and feel terrible with them, without trying to fix them with platitudes; doing this with them is just about the most gracious gift we have to offer. We give up what we think we should be doing, or think we need to get done, to keep them company.

Forgiveness and mercy mean that, bit by bit, you begin to outshine the resentment.

The movement of grace toward gratitude brings us from the package of self-obsessed madness to a spiritual awakening. Gratitude is peace.

The beginning of forgiveness is often exhaustion. You're pooped; thank God.

God gives us Her own self. Left to my own devices, I would prefer answers. This is why it is good that I am in charge of so little: the pets, the shopping, the garden.

It all made me think of Eugene O'Neill's line, "Man is born broken. He lives by mending. The grace of God is glue.

God loves you crazily, like I love you, Rae said, like a slightly overweight auntie, who sees only your marvelousness and need.