God knows that all of us will fall somehow. Those events that lead us to ‘catastrophize’ out of all proportion must be business as usual for God—at least six billion times a day. Like good spiritual directors do, God must say after each failure of ours, ‘Oh, here is a great opportunity! Let’s see how we can work with this!’ After our ego-inflating successes, God surely says, ‘Well, nothing new or good is going to happen here!’ Failure and suffering are the great equalizers and levelers among humans. Success is just the opposite. Communities and commitment can form around suffering much more than around how wonderful or superior we are… There is a strange and even wonderful communion in real human pain, actually much more than in joy, which is too often manufactured and passing.

Like any true mirror, the gaze of God receives us exactly as we are, without judgment or distortion, subtraction or addition. Such perfect receiving is what transforms us. Being totally received as we truly are is what we wait and long for all our lives. All we can do is receive and return the loving gaze of God every day, and afterwards we will be internally free and deeply happy at the same time. The One who knows all has no trouble including, accepting, and forgiving all. Soon we who are gazed upon so perfectly can pass on the same accepting gaze to all others who need it.

Richard Rohr, Falling Upward.

At one point, I wasn’t ready or able to really understand or receive this. Now I think I’m beginning to get it.