Grace...

Grace. I can't seem to get enough of it. It's my middle name and I still miss it. I cannot wrap my mind around it, there is nothing else in the world like it... the only place it really exists is in the Kingdom of God. I hope it never loses it's wonder to me.

A couple weeks ago I picked up Brennen Manning's Ragamuffin Gospel again and have been savoring it's message. It was written for "the beat up, bedragled, and burnt out. It is for the sorely burdened who are still shifting the heavy suitcase from one hand to the other. It is for the wobbly and weak-kneed who know they don't have it altogether and are too proud to accept the ahndout of amazing grace. It is for inconsistent, unsteady disciples whose cheese is falling off their cracker..." That's my kind of book!

Grace substitutes a full, childlike and delighted acceptance of our need, a joy in total dependance. The good man is sorry for the sins which have increased his need. He is not entirely sorry for the fresh need they have produced. - C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

My deepest awareness of myself is that I am deeply loved by Jesus Christ and I have done nothing to earn it or deserve it. - Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel

You are accepted. Never confuse your perception of yourself with the mystery that you really are accepted. - Manning, Ibid.