I’ve loved Glennon Doyle Melton from her blog and facebook updates through her first book, and had been eagerly awaiting this most recent book for months. I finished it in two days (and y’all, it’s been a busy week, so that is really quite a feat).
I was expecting this book to be a story about how to love someone else well, how to forgive well. It was that, but looking back over the whole, it was more a story of G learning to love herself well, forgive herself first, and extend that grace to others.
It was a story of knowing the God who is love and loving out of that.
My soul’s source is God, and God is love. I am, right at this moment, in perfect love with God and there is no fear in perfect love. Is this what they mean by eternity? It must be… I am loved and have always been loved and will always, always be loved.
It was, of course, also a story about Glennon’s marriage and its falling apart and putting back together. It was, as all things G writes are, heartwrenchingly honest and open, soul baring and unapologetic.
Thursday was the hardest day so far this school year for me. The weekend before, we had a student pass away in a terrible accident. My students were grieving and confused. We had been ready for this early in the week, knew they would be angry and afraid and sad, planned a whole day of rest and routine before moving forward, but I wasn’t ready for my own feelings come Thursday.
In the midst of all this, we got a new student on Thursday, who was terrified and sad in his own right, new to America, new to English, new to school. I raced around trying to set up an extra desk, find an extra notebook, welcome him generously, but when I finally got him to his music class and took a 3 minute break to go to the bathroom, I closed the stall door and burst into tears.
I was completely raw from shielding these kids from as much of the world as I could this week, and so were all the other adults in the building. I was sad, I was angry at other teachers for not helping me or getting in my way, I was exhausted.
I had a long meeting after school and when I finally got to sit down and rest for a minute on the couch with Josh, I started crying again. I was still upset about an interaction with another staff member that day, but mostly I couldn’t tell him why I was crying. I was just feeling everything from the whole week all at once.
I came home, self-righteous and still angry, and read some more of Love Warrior to try to relax before sleep.
Grace makes no disclaimer. It’s true for all or none. The price of grace for me is grace for Craig… And that’s when I understand that grace is a beautiful, terrible thing. That the price of love is high indeed. That for me, the price is this: I must stop pretending that I am any different from Craig and those women.
The price of grace for me is grace for those who hurt me. I put down the book and found a blank notecard. I wrote a note thanking the other staff member for their hard work during a week that had been overwhelming and stressful and painful for all of us. I apologized for my part in our conflict. And I left it on her desk Friday morning, because I’m still a little cowardly and wasn’t ready to talk to her face yet.
It was one of the most humbling gestures I have ever attempted, and I was legitimately unsure how it would be received.
But G was right- the price of grace for me is grace for everybody in this whole wide broken wonderful world.
Friday was a new day. The other staff member and I were able to hug it out and apologize face to face and start again. One of my coworkers described the change as “miraculous”. I think that’s about right. Grace like this is a miracle.
You can find Love Warrior at bookstores everywhere, on amazon, and probably at your local library. I’m not getting paid anything to write this review and I got my book from the library- I just wanted you all to support great authors and great writing, so I’m sharing it with you here.
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