One Thousand Gifts {chapter five}

Chapter 5 - what in the world, in all this world, is grace?
Quotes:

• If I am numbering gift moments to one thousand --- what moments in my life count as blessings? If I name this moment as gift, grace, what is the next moment? Curse? (p. 85)
• Surely, just as I have intended so it has happened and just as I have planned so it will stand. -Isaiah 14:24 (p. 88)
• All God makes is good. Can it be that, that which seems to oppose the will of God actually is used of Him to accomplish the will of God? That which seems evil only seems so because of perspective, the way the eyes see the shadows. Above the clouds, light never stops shining. (p. 88)
• Sometimes we need time to answer the hard eucharisteo. (p. 90)
• "If this is how You treat Your friends, no wonder You have so few!" St. Teresa of Avila (p. 98)
• This is what the French call d'un beau affreux, what the Germans call hubsch-hasslich - the ugly beautiful. That is what is perceived as ugly transfigures into beautiful. The ugly can be beautiful. The dark can give birth to life; suffering can deliver grace.

Insights:
What of all this grace then? (p. 81)
Isn't even one grace enough? (p. 93)
All is grace.
God is always good and I am always loved.
Everything is eucharisteo. (p. 100)
All is grace only because all can transfigure. (p. 101)

Mmm. This chapter. I liked it. =) Although her poetic words in the first few paragraphs in every chapter do not sit so well with me, maybe I am just not in the mood to be poetic, she usually turns it around and I fall in love with each chapter.

There was a love of hurt & sorrow in this chapter. This lady has gone through a lot of loss throughout her life. First her little sister who got hit by a car, causing her mother to lose it and spend time in a mental ward. Her little farmer boy neighbor died. Her son almost lost his hand. Pulled at my heart strings for sure. Lots of questions. Made me ask the same questions. What is grace? How I can expect to write down all of my gifts without them being juxtaposed with curses?

But what if the curses are gifts?
Can I look for the ugly beautiful in life?
Will I learn to appreciate the ugly beautiful?

Maybe this week you will see some ugly beautiful in my list.
Click here to see my growing list gifts, blessings, and grace. 
This list is never ending. - because all is grace.

Click here to read my thoughts on previous chapters. 
Click here to link-up your own thoughts.