Tonight I am the Queen Orual bringing my complaint against my God. I do not understand. I do not understand His mercy, His love, His disregard for justice, for my proper desserts.

I can look at men who are responsible for millions of deaths and say, “My, that’s awful. That’s real bad.” But it does not look as rotten as the microcosm of my own heart, my slimed, oozing, bought-back heart.

That He would make me, know me, and yet love me, and die of my scourge that I might be healed… It does not fit into this world I have built to live in.

When you strip away all those things people say, all those pats on my shoulder, I’m pretty simple-minded. As Ethan said last week, “Grace is not intuitive.” It seems that I understand sin and nothing more. I have no face yet with which to see His. I am not gall or heartburn, but blind eyes and a mouth unopened in praise or in hunger.

I do not understand. I cannot understand. Grace for my sin is too terrible a good and I am frightened.

Nevertheless, I will eat the glowing coals of righteousness and mercy, though they burn my lips. In fear and trembling, I will open my mouth and give thanks.