The greatest story ever told and said so eloquently in a fictional book.

“I broke myself of booze.”

He whistled, “Tough to get sober without help.” “Tough to get sober with help, “said T.  Prob’ly ought to quit smokin’, too, like Ray did a while back.  Man.  Quit drinkin’, quit smokin’, quit messin’ with women.  I might as well lay down an’ die.  Never expected t’ end up some ol’ dude out in th’ sticks, playin’ gin rummy an’ watchin’ th’ History Channel.”

T took a drag off the cigarette and exhaled.  “So tell me somethin’.  Goin’ back to bein’ broke, how come you ain’t broke?”

“I am broke.  What I’ve found in being a priest is that we’re all broken.  Fallen is perhaps a more scriptural concept, but usually what falls gets broken, so it’s all the same.

“The upside is, he promises we’ll be made whole in heaven. “Til then, we keep seeking him, keep trusting him, keep letting him have his way with us.  That’s our job.”

His job is to keep forgiving us and keep loving us.  That’s why, when he gives us something tough to do, he doesn’t turn his back and walk away.  He sticks with us, sees us through—only if we ask him to.  If we ask, he supplies everything we need to make our hundred-dollar car go like a scalded dog—to quote a friend of mine.”

I don’t know about religion.  It don’t make sense t’ me.”  

“Too complicated, that’s why.  I say, forget religion.  What it’s about, T, is the two of you, you and him.  Nothing more, nothing less.  A lot of people wonder why they were born.  I believe what scripture says, that he made us for his pleasure.  You might say he made us because he wants somebody around, somebody like you and somebody like me.  Kind of what you said a while ago.  Pretty amazing that he would want me around, I can tell you that.”

T leaned his head against the back of the chair.  “Too much for me, th’ whole deal of livin’.”

I’m with you on that.”  “Even with God in the picture, I still go through some hard stuff, and always will.  But he’s in it with me, which makes all the difference.

“The bottom line is, it’s totally, fatally about surrender.  That’s what it takes—throwing out your agenda and trusting his.  “I was in my forties before I really got it.  I was a priest before I got it.”

“One night, I came to the end of myself.  I hit a wall and I couldn’t go over it or under it or around it or through it.  Dead end.  I’d been reading a good deal, trying to figure it out.

“I thought a lot about something a young French mathematician wrote.  He said, “Let us weigh the gain and the loss, wagering that God is.  Consider these alternatives—if you win, you win all.  If you lose, you lose nothing.  Do not hesitate, then, to wager that he is. “

I’d been wagering a little here and a little there.  That night, I wagered everything.  I prayed a prayer that went something like this.  Thank you, God, for loving me, and for sending your son to die for my sins,  I sincerely repent of my sins and turn my entire life over to you.  Amen.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

Home to Holly Springs. by Jan Karon pages 272 and 273

Today the day after Thanksgiving Day as I prepare dinner for our family tomorrow, listening to the CD and thinking of me and my life, it just seemed fitting to share the spiritual blessing I received once more from a fictional set of books that the Lord blessed me to have read and listened to a dozen times that lifts me up and sets my mind on things above and enables me to either forget or put in prospective the things here on earth.