Scorched Grace (Sister Holiday Mystery, #1)

by Margot Douaihy

Pain is evidence of growth. The ache means we’re changing.

Take pleasure in infirmities, in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties,’ said Paul in 2 Corinthians 12:10, ‘for when I am weak then I am strong.’”

All merciful God, undo it. Take it back. This is why everyone thinks you are full of shit. If you are all-powerful, then unfuck this.

“Religion is like art, we all get to make our own interpretations.

It has passed, it is the past. But the memories are close, stitched into me like tattoos. Intricate. Painful. Screaming back to life every time I pray.

No break is clean, I thought. Every fracture buries a ghost inside.

I’m supposed to believe that God is a powerful white man with a white beard residing on a marshmallow-white cloud, but I don’t. God isn’t a person. God is everything, everywhere, in all of this, the details I remember and everything I’ve forgotten. The stubbornness of fire. In clues so obvious they blind you. Blood that cleanses and blood that kills. God is perfection, even in devastation. This might be the only thing I’m sure of: God is especially alive in women. The arc of a shoulder, the gray depth of a stare, the hand that is strong enough to reach out and take, the hand that is strong enough to give.