To Be Alive Is To Be Broken...

    To be alive is to be broken.  And to be broken is to stand in need of grace.  Honesty keeps us in touch with our neediness and the truth that we are saved sinners.  There is a beautiful transparency to honest disciples who never wear a false face and do not pretend to be anything but who they are.

Getting honest with ourselves does not make us unacceptable to God.  It does not distance us from God, but draws us to Him—as nothing else can—and opens us anew to the flow of grace.  While Jesus calls each of us to a more perfect life, we cannot achieve it on our own.  To be alive is to be broken; to be broken is to stand in need of grace.  It is only through grace that any of us could dare to hope that we could become more like Christ.

           Brennan Manning (The Ragamuffin Gospel)