I’m reading a book called “Home” by Marilynne Robinson. It’s a rather slow moving, depressing story about a brother and sister who have returned home, complete with emotional baggage, as 30 or 40-something adults. I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it as a good read, but it does have some precious nuggets and thought provoking phrases.
“Weary or bitter or bewildered as we may be, God is faithful. He lets us wander so we will know what it means to come home.”
I’m trying to wrap my head around this one: “There is a saying that to understand is to forgive, but that is an error, so Papa used to say. You must forgive in order to understand. Until you forgive, you defend yourself against the possibility of understanding…If you forgive, you may indeed still not understand, but you will be ready to understand, and that is the posture of grace.” Makes me think of Mark Twain’s “forgiveness is the fragrance from the violet as it is crushed by the boot heel” (or something like that). No way to understand the why of some cruelties, even when you forgive. And that forgiveness comes only by God’s grace. Millie Lungren wrote in her devotional just now (she’s the writer of the week for Covenant’s Home Altar and was sharing about the woman who washed Jesus’ feet with expensive perfume and her hair and her tears ) that “when we show love, it’s the product of being forgiven, because love is fruit of forgiveness”. Millie asks us to consider our choices of response to other sinners, of judgement vs. grace, and conceit vs. humility. Lord grant us the ability to forgive, to love, to have understanding, to have mercy.
