Lisa Velthouse - Craving Grace: A Story of Faith, Failure, and My Search for Sweetness

Advance Praise for Craving Grace

Lisa writes with energy and honesty about that mysterious, intoxicating, beautiful gift called gracemany will find themselves in her stories and experiences.

Rob Bell

Lisa Velthouse paints a beautiful picture of her journey toward a deep, rich, and more full experience of Gods grace. Her honest and witty yet profound story leads us to consider ways we may have misunderstood the very essence of Gods grace and the ultimate sweetness of knowing Jesus. This book will amplify your understanding of grace.

David Martinelli, National Director of Campus Field Ministry, Pacific Southwest Region, Campus Crusade for Christ

Lisa Velthouses transparency makes me laugh (and cry). But mostly, her growing grasp of graceor it of herchallenges my mind and moves my heart to want more of the same in my life.

Connally Gilliam, author of Revelations of a Single Woman

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Craving Grace: A Story of Faith, Failure, and My Search for Sweetness

Copyright 2011 by Lisa Velthouse. All rights reserved.

Front cover photograph taken by Stephen Vosloo. Copyright by Tyndale House Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved.

Back cover photograph of dripping honey copyright Anna Luczynska/iStockphoto. All rights reserved.

Author photo copyright 2010 by Jen Doornbos Photography. All rights reserved.

Designed by Julie Chen

Edited by Stephanie Voiland

Published in association with WordServe Literary Agency, 10152 Knoll Circle, Highlands Ranch, CO 80130.

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version , NIV . Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com.

Scripture quotations marked NLT are taken from the Holy Bible , New Living Translation, copyright 1996, 2004, 2007 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked ESV are taken from The Holy Bible , English Standard Version, copyright 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked NKJV are taken from the New King James Version. Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. NKJV is a trademark of Thomas Nelson, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Velthouse, Lisa, date.

Craving grace : a story of faith, failure, and my search for sweetness / Lisa Velthouse.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 978-1-4143-3577-3 (hc)

1. Velthouse, Lisa, date. 2. Grace (Theology) 3. FastingReligious aspectsChristianity. 4. Christian biographyUnited States. I. Title.

BR1725.V46A3 2011

248.47dc22 [B] 2010048746

Authors Note

This is a work of nonfiction. Stories and characters are presented here with two purposes: to portray events and encounters as I remember them and to capture the meanings that surfaced as a result. Some details have been changed to conceal identities or to simplify the story line. For instance, the character Cora is a composite. For instance, I craved chocolate countless times more than the number of occasions mentioned.

For Nathan

Not anything that we ever did or were, but something that was done for us by another. Not our own lives, but the life of one who died in our behalf and yet still is alive. This is our only glory and our only hope. And the sound that it makes is the sound of excitement and gladness and laughter that floats through the night air from a great banquet.

Frederick Buechner, The Road to Emmaus

Mike Teavee: Why is everything here completely pointless?

Charlie Bucket: Candy doesnt have to have a point. Thats why its candy.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Introduction: After Falling

If you spend any time at all in churches, youre guaranteed to hear at some point a preacher talk about the stupidity of sheep. Senseless, idiotic creatures, hell proclaim to the congregation, and hell have plenty of pasture tales to prove it. Sheep running from a photo of a wolf. Sheep, a whole flock of them, plummeting to their deaths after attempting to jump a fifty-foot-wide ravine. Sheep getting blinded by sunlight because they wont move to the shade. Sheep eating dirt. With these stories entered as evidence, the preacher will turn to Psalm 23 and read, The L ORD is my shepherd with a knowing smile, and what hell tell you next is that the Bible is saying were all a bunch of ignorant, bleating failures.

A lifetime churchgoer, Ive heard more than a few variations on the sheep-are-stupid metaphor, but Ive never been fully sold on it. At one time or another Ive even resented some of its spiritual implications. While I like to think Ive embraced my own laundry list of flaws and shortfalls, I also like to view myself as at least somewhat capable and intelligent, more a success than a flop. Put me in a pew for thirty minutes of hearing about ewes careening off the side of a mountain, and its likely that by sermons end Ill have tuned out the pastor.

But a few months ago I watched the directors commentary of a period film set in the English countryside. There was a flock of sheep that trotted across one of the frames, and at that point in the movie the director stopped whatever else she was saying and pointed out that filming had happened just before shearing season. The coats on the sheep had grown so thick and long, she said, that the animals would be standing one minute and the next they wouldve tipped over from their own weight. Crew members had to go and put them upright again.

I think it was one of the best sermons on Psalm 23 Ive ever heard; it cut right through me. It brought to my minds eye a reel of scenes and memories, moments from my former self. In those scenes I saw and recalled the person I used to be, the faith I used to lug around with me. It was a faith full of rules and behavior requirements, of To Do and Absolutely Do Not lists that had somehow seemed imperative because of Jesus. I saw my long timeline of squeaky clean livingit spanned decades and began with an impressive row of shiny stars next to my name on the Sunday school roster. I saw those stars and how much they had mattered to me, how over the years they and other accolades had become my faith trophies, won by always doing things right and right and right. I saw the structure and rigor and the matted, dirty-wool religion of it, how impossibly heavy and burdensome it had all become in the end. And I saw, too, that my knee-jerk reaction, even after everything, was to be that same dumb sheep still.

Here is where this particular story has its beginning and its end: one night a little over three years ago, at the long-past-pubescent age of twenty-four, I had my first and my second kiss. This is an odd and awkward detail to share, yes. But the odd and awkward truth is that by then I had turned a common thing, kissing, into a sort of capstone. I had built other things around and upon it, had given heft and importance to it, with good intentions and without realizing that the weight couldnt hold. Looking back, it makes sense that when my system of faith started caving in, the first big crumbles happened there. Part of the fallout now is that it is impossible to tell my story without also telling of the two kisses.