Unrelenting Grace

As midnight nears so close it is about to race on by the waiting clock, life has come to a slow crawl as sleep has already slipped in the room as I sat on the sofa reading "The Seven Storey Mountain" by Thomas Merton.  With only a hundred or so pages to go it seemed like something which might be finished before sleep arrived, but alas, sleep came too soon.  It is not that the book had become boring.  It has had its slow spots but at this point there is such energy in the pages that I am eager to see how the drama of his life unfolded.     

For those who may not know, and I must profess to being one of those before opening the book, the lengthy writing is about his conversion.  It is about him coming to faith and coming to the place of his resurrection which is how the ancient Celtic saints spoke of the destination of their pilgrmmage.  It has been a reading which has set me to remembering my own journey toward conversion and the faithful ones put alongside of me on the journey to keep me going and to keep me going in the right direction.  As Merton points out in his book this journey toward faith is not a straight journey from Point A to Point B, but is more like a circuitous path along an unknown way.    

I arrived at the moment of beginning somewhat by surprise.  Like Merton I was a seeker, but when the moment of conversion really came it was as he spoke of it a moment heavily loaded with a dose of divine grace.  I was at best a sinner floundering in the indecision of my life.  I had tried numerous times to put my life in His hands, but each time I was also quick to reclaim it.  There finally came that place in the journey where He broke into my life with such love that I turned toward Him in such a way that turning away was never again a serious option.  There is only one explanation why He did not turn away from me long before that night and only one explanation as to why He has remained faithful to me for nearly sixty years.  Grace.  Thanks be to God for His unrelenting grace.