What E. said when she was writing about what N. said and what she thought about that.

“He said that while consequences always have to play out and we don’t always get rescued from them, and it may take time and work for us to change our behaviors, it does not take any additional time or energy for the atonement to cover our sins.

“They are already paid.

“We don’t need to shout out the behaviors or choices of others or ourselves, and lose our voices screaming the cost of it all.

“Because it’s already paid.

“We can’t disappoint God, because he already knows us perfectly.

“It means, though, that [we really should not be devastated by] disappoint[ment in ourselves], because what we thought was disappointment is really an opportunity to see ourselves more clearly and more accurately.

“C.S. Lewis said that because God knows all (which is not the same as causing all), our experience of the present moment is like God’s experience of the past, present, and future all at once.  The more we live in the present, rather than lost in the past or worried about the future, the more accurately we will learn to see ourselves the way God see[s] us.”