Blessed Assurance

I keep thinking about one of my favorite books in recent years, Traveling Mercies by Anne Lamott. In it she tells of God's call in and through her life, a life of many valleys. She says: "Mine was a patchwork God sewn together from bits of rag and ribbon, Eastern and Western, pagan and Hebrew, everything but the kitchen sink and Jesus." And in her darkest hours she reaches out to a pastor in a nearby church and to whom she tells her story. She concludes by saying that she didn't think that God could love her. The pastor said, "God has to love you. That's God's job." She then asked - What does it mean to be saved? To which the pastor responded that she really didn't have to think about this, but she persisted and he said - "I guess it's like discovering you're on the shelf of a pawnshop, dusty and forgotten and maybe not worth very much. But Jesus comes in and tells the pawnbroker, ""I'll take her place on the shelf. Let her go outside again.' " Truly words of blessed assurance!