This is about the author, Anne, and how she came to have faith. It is quirky, and colorful and not at all righteous. Each of our journeys are different, each are our own. "I guess it's like discovering you're on the shelf of a pawnshop, dusty and forgotten and maybe not worth very much. But Jesus comes in and tells the pawnbroker, 'I'll take her place on the shelf. Let her go outside again.'" Sometimes we feel like we aren't worth very much but Jesus says we are each worth a Son. "And that is why I have stayed so close to mine-because no matter how bad I am feeling, how lost or lonely or frightened, when I see the faces of the people at my church, and hear their tawny voices, I can always find my way home." This is what it shoudl be like, I just don't think it always is. But this is what God meant, for the body of Christ to be this to one another. "We in our faith work stumble along toward where we think we're supposed to go, bumbling along, and here is what's so amazing-we end up getting exactly where we're supposed to be." Thanks to the hand of God directing our paths. "I always thought that was heroic of her, that it spoke of such integrity to refuse to pretend that you're doing well just to help other poeple deal with the fact that sometimes we face an impossible loss." Refusing to pretend takes such courage especially when others around you want and need you to be ok. "She said that the world sometimes feels like the waiting room of the emergency ward and that we who are more or less OK for now need to take the tenderest possible care of the more wounded people in the waiting room until the healer comes." I love this word picture. "...in which he said that he's so savoring the moments of his life right now, so acutely aware of the love and small pleasures that he no longer feels that he has a life-threatening desease: he now says he's leading a disease-threatening life." What a change of perspective. "But courage is fear that has said its prayers." We can all then be courageous, all it takes is some prayer. "And then I remembered this basic principle that God isn't there to take away our suffering or our pain but to fill it with His presence." He doesn't promise an easy life free of hurt or pain but He does promise to be there in the midst. "When you make friends with fear; it can't rule you." I'm not sure how to do that but I'm willing. This was a interesting little read with lots of good tidbits. It was quirky, fun and enlightening.
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