“All Is Grace”

Yesterday I finished reading Brennan Manning’s memoir, “All is Grace”. I don’t think I’ve ever been so moved by an author. I feel like I had actually known him. He ended the book with a dynamic story about his mother. As a child he felt lonely and unloved, even though he had an older brother, a younger sister and parents. His father was an alcoholic and his mother was unkind to him. He never even went to his Mom’s funeral when she died years later. She had been dead for almost ten years, when her face flashed before his mind one day as he was praying. Her face was as a six year old child. She was kneeling on the windowsill of an orphanage begging God to send her a mommy and daddy that would love her and whisk her away. Brennan then continued. “As I looked, I believe I finally saw my mother; she was a ragamuffin too. And all my resentment and anger fell away. The little girl turned and walked toward me. As she drew closer the years flew by and she stood before me an aged woman. She said, ‘You know, I messed up a lot when you were a kid. But you turned out okay.’ Then my old mother did something she’d never done before in her life, never once. She kissed me on the lips and on both cheeks. At that moment I knew that the hurt between my mother and me was real and did matter, but that it was okay.’ The trusting heart gives a second chance; it is forgiven and, in turn, forgives. I looked at my mother and said, I forgive you. She smiled and said, ‘I guess sometimes you do get what you ask for’. She had told him for years that you don’t always get what you ask for.

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