jenk

This is from Amazing Grace, a collection of essays by Kathleen Norris. After noting that the Biblical twins Jacob and Esau were only able to reconcile after Jacob wrestled with "a man, an angel, God, we are never told for sure" comes this (emphasis mine):

We make such a fuss about "seeking God". We're anxious about so many things, and faith, prayer, and searching for God are not excepted. Are we doing it right? [...] Probably the best thing we can do is relax, take a deep breath, stop thinking about what we want or need, and forget about it. Seeking God, that is. Instead we might wait, and begin to silently ponder the ways in which God may already have been seeking us, all along, in the faulty, scary stuff of our ordinary lives.

God knows we have problems letting bygones by bygones, in our families, in the workplace, in our small towns. Maybe that's where God has been contending with us, engaging us in the process of conversion. Most of us have had family, mentors, friends, and even enemies who have wrestled with us through the important questions; who have helped us grow up, building something good out of the ruins we have made for ourselves. Like Jacob, maybe some of us have looked for a curse and received a blessing instead. Like Jacob, some of us have found the worst parts of ourselves converted into something better, our small expectations shattered in the presence of God's great abundance, or as the old hymn puts it, "the wideness of God's mercy."

The name of this chapter? "Conversion: The Scary Stuff"