I’ve been reading this book by Serena Woods over the past 2-3 days titled Grace is for Sinners. It’s an incredibly good read….and it’s also an incredibly bad read.
This book is Serena’s story. It deals primarily with a mistake that she made in her life…and what her church did to her because of it.
This book is so hard to read because of her pain that just pours through the pages. I’ve never been in the situations that she has lived through, but I felt terrible reading it. It’s so powerfully written that, to me, I could feel the emptiness, horror, abandonment and suffering she received at the hands of those who are supposed to be God’s people on Earth. I could at times physically feelpain deep inside me for what she went through…and what many more go through in the same way.
I won’t say that I “can’t believe” this is how people reacted and treated her…because I do believe it. But that doesn’t make it any easier to stomach. Maybe if I could tell myself that she was over-exaggerating or her perceptions were skewed, or she was putting the others in a bad light–then maybe that would make it easier to stomach. But if I’m honest, she portrayed ‘the others’ in an incredibly good light. The amount of grace she displayed in the way she wrote this story about those who nearly destroyed her (and her family) is incredible.
But this book isn’t just about the horrible treatment she received. It’s about healing. It’s about grace and forgiveness that she received over and over from Jesus in spite of those who should have been his mouthpieces who drilled it into her that she was unforgivable. Who told her she was unrepentant, unloved, unworthy of respect, and unworthy of being associated with. Those who instead of helping to pick her back up, tore her down further and further….and did the same to others.
You should read this book.
Whether you’ve been in a similar situation or not.
If you have, it will likely help you. Give you hope. Show you forgiveness. Serve as an example of God’s restoration.
If you have not, it may stop you from unknowingly (or knowingly) crushing someone who desperately needs your grace and love in their most vulnerable times. It may stop you from destroying someone without your even trying.
Danny J. Bixby for dannyjbixby.blogspot.com
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Coming into this book as a confident christian, I expected another read that tells a story and is accompanied with scripture in such a way that the story seems distant and the scripture could come off stale. The kind of “I was reading in the Trinity Gazette this week…” story we hear from the pulpit now and again. We can all relate but when the story is over and the communion cups are down we all use the scriptures in the way they best fit in our lives. My father was a minister and his father before him and on down the line…. I have heard scripture from childhood and I was prepared to challenge anything that didn’t sit square with me. There was a point, though, in the middle of the book that struck me in a deep and meaningful way. It was humbling to move from “knowing it all” to being completely confused about why I thought some of the things I thought. This is not your typical grace, this is God’s grace in action. This book will challenge you whether you don’t believe in God or you have been a follower for your entire life.
Rhett Roberson
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When we talk about grace on Sunday morning, we often couch it in sacrosanct sentiment. We gloss over our (or others’) bevy of shortcomings with a wand of detachment, daring only to acquaint ourselves with some vague and perhaps grandiose notion of grace. When we depart into Sunday afternoon traffic, however, the thin vapor of grace as something lofty and intangible tends to evaporate.
Does grace really show up in the crevices of our lives? Grace looks pretty on paper, but is it just like the inflated legal tender of our collapsing economy-a currency that promises much but is backed with little value? Grace seems like something we should talk about only once we don’t need it. Do our inadequacies punch holes in the righteousness that Christ champions?
Grace seems like something we talk about in the sanctuary, not the bars. We speak of it as though it is lightweight, floating around in the clouds as some ephemeral nicety. But grace is meant to go hand-in-hand with experience. It’s meant to be the flower pushing up through mud and grit. Grace is the cupful of water running over the dusty lips of those who are facedown in the desert. Grace is for sinners.
Serena Woods’ autobiographical account of her experience with grace minces no words. The opening chapter of Grace is for Sinners picks up her story with her on the bathroom floor, shutting her kids out from her so they won’t see her crying about the affair she was having with her friend’s husband.
She writes, “I was a Christian for nine years and never did anything like this before. I didn’t think I ever would. I had strong feelings and biting words for people who do what I did and there I sat, being who I hate and still being me, whom I loved. Two separate identities in one small body…I wondered that night, if hell was just separation from God.”
We have a difficult time extending grace to fellow believers. All manner of tangled questions arise as to how much God really forgives and what that means to those who sin and their community around them. Of course, we know in our heads that we are all sinners saved by grace-we can quote the verse-but sadly that often does little to prevent us from stratifying our degrees of righteousness for a handy reference point.
This was very much Serena’s encounter with the church, and catching a glimpse of her heartbreaking experience of rejection shines a glaring Mag light on the high price of judgmental predispositions. Certainly, our failures bring enough devastation on themselves. But self-righteous judgment and moral stratification within the church can extenuate the damage beyond recovery.
‘Grace is for Sinners’ is the story of a woman who found grace where it was most needed and from the purest source-God Himself. But it came through the most painful of voyages across the wilderness of guilt, misguidance, and isolation. Christians who didn’t know how to handle grace on an industrial level burned the bridge that Christ meant to bring Serena back into restoration. Serena freely admits her guilt, but so convictingly reminds us, “Jesus didn’t hang on the cross in case you need him, he hung on the cross because you desperately need him.”
This is, and has always been, the essence of the Gospel. Death to life. Brokenness to restoration. The very experience of the Resurrection represents the transformation that each of us who claim Christ has undergone. We don’t get to hang on to just a little bit of our own moral status. He asks us to completely swap our attempts at holiness with his own. If we are still sitting in judgment of one remorseful believer’s failures over and against our own with no posture of restoration, it can only be because we ourselves have not found the profusion of healing that God aches for us to take from His scarred-over hands. Perhaps we are still cowering from our own guilt, covering it up by pointing at the decoy of others’ guilt. Grace levels the playing field. Redemption is meant for all.
Grace, in short, is for sinners.
Reviewed by Mariah Secrest, Wrecked For The Ordinary
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“I finished the book today and just wanted to say that first of all I highly recommend the book. The author, Serena Woods, gives a first hand account of an abusive childhood, foster care, finding faith, falling into an affair and heer finding grace in spite of the “biblical discipline” dished out to her by her church family. The book really is an incredible read and is one of those books that I think could well become a staple for myself and others like me who need a faith and a God who doesn’t fit into a box. Woods does an excellent job of telling the story of how church discipline almost destroyed her faith instead of helping to bring her to a point of restoration. She provides specific examples of how this biblical discipline was actually anything but biblical and does so without coming across as mean spirited or vindictive. She also doesn’t down play her own shortcomings and the sin of the affair that ultimately led to this book being written. Woods also does a fine job of pointing out that for the believer God should be sovereign and we need to believe that he all things in control at all times. I really don’t think I can recommend this book highly enough, especially for those who feel abandoned or outcast by the church.”
-Dwayne randomishstuph.blogspot.com
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“Grace is for Sinners makes for gripping, yet uncomfortable reading. Serena Woods’ gritty portrayal of her life story centers around her fall from grace in 2005 when she had an affair with her best friend’s husband. This resulted in the destruction of the lives that both had managed to create to that point. They were alienated from their spouses, jobs, families, and friends, but soon married each other and began struggling to determine how to move forward. Grace is for Sinners is Woods’ attempt to make sense of her life’s pilgrimage, a road marked by unmarked turns and potholes. The first one-third of the book details her life up to the point of her adultery, from her childhood of neglect and abuse, to her conversion to Christ as a teenager, to her marriage and motherhood. Life was never easy. The last half of the book explores the uncomfortable questions resulting from the affair. She admits culpability and details her inner struggles over her failures. She makes a plea that family, friends and church learn how to show grace to those who fail.
Grace for Sinners is autobiographical, but it also raises existential questions that apply to all people. If, as scripture says, the law is written on all men’s hearts, then the Ten Commandments have a universal appeal and application. Humanity naturally tends to condemn adultery because its existence undermines the foundation of society, the family. Still, adultery occurs with some frequency despite this universal or near-universal recognition that it is wrong. Woods knows, painfully, that right and wrong are easier to identify than to live up to. Humanity’s lot is imperfection, but Woods rightfully points out that God’s gift is forgiveness. How can a society both discourage infidelity and show mercy to those who are unfaithful so that they can get on with their lives? Woods lives within this tension, and with this book she aims to use her personal experience to spur dialogue toward a healthier attitude toward sinners. While many use scripture to castigate sinners, I suspect that scripture is also Woods’ best ally in this effort. According to the Bible, “all have sinned,” which is a radical leveling statement that makes it difficult to throw the first stone at another.
‘Grace is for Sinners’ offers painful insight into the consequences of sin. While I do not feel the book presented a way out of the aftermath of an affair, it does raise important questions that readers, hopefully, will struggle with the next time they encounter someone who has fallen.”
- Darrin Rodgers, Heritage Magazine Editor
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