Marianne Williamson quotes Aeschylus, “He who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God.”

Now why would anyone describe God’s grace as “awful”?  The answer is that grace can come to us only when our ego has been penetrated and that is an excruciatingly painful process.   Mercifully, most of us get this grace piecemeal.