Relentless Grace

Anne LaMott has been one of my favorite writers for many years. I read Operating Instructions, her hilarious memoir of her first year of motherhood, when my own son was a newborn and I was struggling with post-partum depression. I laughed until I cried, and have given copies to several mommy-friends.

My favorite book she has written, by far, is her tender and honest Traveling Mercies, which details her thoughts on faith and how she wound up becoming a Christian. Below is an excerpt. I think this encapsulates, quite beautifully, how God continues to pursue us, persistently and relentlessly, throughout our lives until we finally let him in.

"I had a cigarette and turned off the light. After a while, as I lay there, I became aware of someone with me, hunkered down in the corner, and I just assumed it was my father, whose presence I had felt over the years when I was frightened and alone. The feeling was so strong that I actually turned on the light for a moment to make sure no one was there - of coure, there wasn't. But after a while, in the dark again, I knew beyond any doubt that it was Jesus. I felt him as surely as I feel my dog lying nearby as I write this. And I was appalled. I thought about my life and my brilliant hilarious progressive friends; I thought about what everyone would think of me if I became a Christian, and it seemed an utterly impossible thing that simply could not be allowed to happen. I turned to the wall and said out loud, "I would rather die." I felt him just sitting there in the corner of my sleeping loft, watching me with patience and love, and I squinched my eyes shut, which didn't help because that's not what I was seeing him with. Finally I fell asleep, and in the morning, he was gone. This experience spooked me badly, but I thought it was just an apparition, born of fear and self-loathing and booze. But then everywhere I went, I had the feeling that a little cat was following me, wanting me to reach down and pick it up, wanting me to open the door and let it in. But I knew what would happen: you let a cat in one time, give it a little milk, and then it stays forever. So I tried to keep one step ahead of it, slamming my houseboat door when I entered or left. And one week later, when I went back to church, I was so hungover that I couldn't stand up for the songs, but this time I stayed for the sermon, which was just so ridicuous, like someone trying to convince me of the existence of extraterrestrials, but the last song was so so deep and raw and pure that I could not escape. It was as if the people were singing in between the notes, weeping and joyful at the same time and I felt like their voices or something was rocking me in its bosom, holding me like a scared kid, and I opened up to that feeling - and it washed over me. I began to cry and left before the benediction, and I raced home and felt the little cat running along at my heels, and I ran down the dock past dozens of potted flowers, under a sky as blue as one of God's own dreams, and I opened the door to my houseboat, and I stood there a minute, and then I hung my head and said "Screw it: I quit." I took a long deep breath and said out loud, "All right. You can come in." So this was my beautiful moment of conversion."