All Is Grace by Brennan Manning
Sometimes you read a book that makes you feel like you have pulled your heart of your body and sat it in your lap. I felt this way reading Brennan's memoir. It was gut wrenching, encouraging, and hit really close to home. I knew some of his life before, but truly I had not idea to the depth of the pain n his journey. I see now how God used the ravaging effects of an empty childhood to explain grace with such beauty to a man who came to see nothing else but his Abba.
I've learned much about grace from Brennan Manning. The thing that we daily refuse to accept. The thing we try to manufacture for ourselves. It comes from God alone. It comes to the worst of sinners.
As I read about his childhood, I was very struck by how much I could identify with it. He was abused, neglected, unwanted. The pain in my own heart seemed to surface as I read his words. In these words, I realized something very profound God had done for me. Most people who have had this type of childhood are emotionally detached their whole lives. This explains Brennan's divorce and alcoholism. God has done something miraculous in my life. I feel very deeply. Not in a sappy greeting card way. I think it is on a level that most people never allow themselves to get to because of superficiality and fear of pain. I have been struck by this since reading this book. This was something only God could do for me. I thank him for giving Brennan the brilliant words to convey years of unspoken emotion. That in itself is healing.
I wish I could convey to you what his words have done for me. Brennan taught me about this tender, gracious, furiously loving side of God that has forever altered my relationship with God. He taught me that the prodigal can never outrun the Father. That my worth to God is totally dependent of Christ. What richness there is to the words he has offered us as he is ailing in health and unable to care for himself any longer.
"How glorious the splendor of the human heart that trusts that it is loved."
-Brennan Manning
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