Grace. Often used, rarely understood, ‘grace’ is the intimate stepping stone in Donna VanLiere’s new book about journeying through sadness and joy to a place of peace. “Finding Grace, a Memoir” is indeed a message of losing in order to find; a prodigal daughter story with modern characters.

VanLiere, who penned the famous Christmas Hope series of books that began with a slightly cheesy but heartening song about Christmas Shoes, is a beautifully descriptive writer. Her opening paragraphs provide vivid images of her childhood home and its supporting cast of characters, who, we discover, lead her to the place of lost childhood innocence and eventual grace.

God factors highly in VanLiere’s memoir; the Big Guy is, after all, the supreme giver of grace and offers it to us whether we deserve it or not. As with most people who struggle with the concept of something for nothing, this is unsettling for VanLiere. We feel her struggle to confront guilt in the backlash of sexual abuse by a neighbor boy when she was five and watch as forgiveness and grace torment her (though she knows not why) well into adulthood, and openly mock her desire to become a wife and mother.

A witty and gifted writer, VanLiere matures into a young adult with sharpness, zeroing in on other people’s un-grace. Finding it easier to point out where other people’s shortcomings in the grace department lie rather recognizing her own, VanLiere quickly discovers that grace and Christianity are not necessarily a package deal. In an astounding observation of a boyfriend’s parents, uber-conservative Christians, she states they were “so supersized in their spirituality they had no need for grace. They had forgotten that it was the lop-sided souls….who followed Christ while he was on earth.” Ouch.

Central to “Finding Grace” is VanLiere’s struggle to have children. Through honest storytelling and vivid descriptions of fertility treatments, we are witness to her walk down the ambiguous road of injections, sickness, and ultimate disappointment as she and her husband fail to conceive. Initially rejecting adoption, our author refuses to give in to the quiet, grace-filled whispers floating through her head, choosing instead to kick and scream her way through a daily regime of hormones. But, as grace often does when infiltrating our souls, VanLiere allows the whisper to become a voice, and the voice leads her to peace about her body, her emotions, and her spirituality as she begins to complete adoption forms.

Grace the child (and subsequent sister and brother) joins their family in a beautiful progression of chapters in which I became enamored with VanLiere and her lifelong quest to be herself, not just somebody she thought she should be. It’s about time, I thought, too late realizing that I, like VanLiere, might just be searching for my own level of understanding of grace.

The best part of “Finding Grace” is not what VanLiere actually says. While a distinctly Christian-based book offering the Almighty as grace-giver, the point is that grace is not something we should be fighting to seek as if on a quest. It is simple, quiet, and always there. We just have to wade through the crap to see it.

“Didn’t you get the memo, God? The one I sent when I was five? Yeah, I got that memo, but I thought I’d give you something better than you think you deserve.”

That, Van Liere says, is the language of grace.

Read the book, mamas. You might know more about grace than you think.

Erin Kirkland is a freelance writer and blogger from Anchorage, Alaska.