The real wisdom here isn't that grace changes us—plenty of sentimental greeting cards promise that—but rather Lamott's honest admission that she can't explain *how* it works. That humility matters. By refusing to decode grace's mechanism, she protects something genuine from the flattening that comes with easy explanation, the way trying to explain a joke murders it. When you're sitting across from someone who's finally ready to stop drinking, or who's chosen forgiveness after years of bitterness, you recognize what she means: something shifts that nobody quite understands, but the evidence is unmistakable.