Prevenient grace. I learned that word once. It is the kind of grace that goes before you to prepare a place for you. It is grace that tabernacles beneath the fire and cloud bidding you follow from place to place, anticipating your hesitation, your desire, your reluctance. The grace you find when you get there. The grace of your mother's arms after you are born. The grace that already knows that, eventually, you will come no matter how cranky you are about it.

Suzanne Guthrie, Praying the Hours