A Spacious Grace
We shouldn’t put down people who show great euphoria and excitement after a born again or religious experience. They’re right. Suddenly the world makes sense for them. Suddenly it’s okay, despite the absurdity, the injustice, the pain. Life is now so spacious that we can even absorb the contradictions.
God is so great, so bottomless, so empty, that God can absorb even the contraries, even the collision of opposites. Thus salvation often feels like a kind of universal amnesty, a total forgiveness of ourselves and all other things.
—Richard Rohr,
Everything Belongs
Richard Rohr captures something beautiful and deeply needed, especially for those carrying the weight of mental illness or addiction: salvation is spacious. When grace truly touches us, it doesn’t shrink life into tight moral rules—it expands it. Suddenly, we’re not crushed by the contradictions of our past or the brokenness of the world. We’re held by a God vast enough to absorb all of it—the beauty and the pain, the doubt and the faith, the healing and the hurting. That’s why, when someone bursts with joy after encountering God, we shouldn’t scoff—we should remember what it means to be set free. God’s mercy is not narrow; it’s bottomless. Let this truth wash over you today: you are fully known, fully held, and fully forgiven. Let that widen your world and become your quiet exhale of hope. —DH
—David Hoskins, Founder & Care Guide, Sanctuary Clinics