Synopsis
Grace is an unexpected blessing bestowed when we need it most. It is a sacred gift, freely given, that blesses us in the most surprising ways at the most surprising times. A rich collection of prayers, meditations, affirmations, and stories, Gift of Grace celebrates the comfort, insight, and joy that God's love brings into our lives, in good times and in bad. Author Candy Chand takes you on a sacred journey through the seven virtues, wherein lie the very essence of grace. Learn how you can call upon these virtues in your life and the lives of your loved ones, and become a person graced by the love and wisdom of the Lord. Gift of Grace will open your heart and your spirit. May the gift of grace be yours.
Publishers Weekly
God's grace takes mundane forms in this slender volume of earnest, slightly eccentric Christian inspirations. Chand, author of Under God's Wings: Miraculous True Stories of Christian Faith and Hope, devotes a chapter each to the seven spiritual virtues-hope, charity, justice, temperance, prudence, fortitude and faith-that flow from grace. These virtues have been the subject of sermons throughout the ages, and while Chand invokes Mother Teresa, Gandhi, Lincoln and many Bible passages, she doesn't tread new spiritual or rhetorical ground. Apart from some daffy assertions (thanks to the fortitude of American GIs, "World War II was decided in record time"), her original contribution is to document the workings of grace in her own life. When compulsive shopping threatens her with ruinous debt, God grants her temperance. When a "horrific legal dispute" sends her "plummeting hopelessly to the emotional bottom" with her "sanity slipping away," God restores hope. Even bathroom breaks require grace, as she discovers when she ignores God's "still, small voice" telling her to avoid a certain toilet, which promptly overflows when she flushes it. Though the book's basic argument-that listening to God about the small stuff can open the heart to his wisdom about profundities, and that grace can be a daily gift-is sound, Chand lingers much too long on stories about the divine influencing the banal. (Feb.) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.