Grace - Explained by someone smarter than me

I'd like to say that recently I have been struggling with the idea of grace. To be perfectly honest I can't say in the dozen or so years I have known Jesus that I have ever been comfortable with grace. I just flat out don't get it. I am sure there is some kind of psycho analysis that tells me why this is, but for the time being I cannot wrap my arms around it. As you can see over the last few sentences I am not good about explaining myself, so I am going to let a someone else explain what I feel.

Donald Miller has been one of my favorite authors since I first read his "Blue Like Jazz" book back in 2005. He seems to be able to capture Christianity in a way I see it but cannot explain it. So instead of fumbling around my thoughts on grace I am going to copy his words. When I read this excerpt this morning it jumped out at me and I read it a number of times to make sure it said exactly how I feel.

Rick is described in the book as Miller's pastor and one of his best friends. When Rick had just become a Christian at 19 years of age he was struggling with the idea of being given this new life and "yet couldn't obey Jesus in return." After telling God how sorry he was and how he wished he could be obedient Rick then tried to overdose on muscle relaxers. [to be clear I am not in any way saying that I am considering Rick's options to get away from my anguish of not being obedient to God]

This is Donald Miller's explanation, from "Blue Like Jazz", of how Rick saw grace:

"Rick tells me, looking back, that he was too proud to receive free grace from God. He didn't know how to live within a system where nobody owes anybody else anything. And the harder it was for Rick to pay God back, the more he wanted to hide. God was his loan shark, so to speak. Though he understood that God wanted nothing in return, his mind could not communicate this fact to his heart, so his life was something like torture."

Sorry to completely rip off someone else to explain my view of grace, but he says it so well. It is torture to know that someone can give me a gift and there is no way for me to pay it back. Miller struggled with grace as well until his heart was open to the idea at a grocery store of all places. When will my enlightenment come?

Miller goes on after the grocery store/grace enlightenment occurrence and says, "I love to give charity, but I don't want to be charity. This is why I have so much trouble with grace." There it is. I am given way more than I deserve already: family that care about me, friends that invite me to eat dinner or watch TV or go to their farm/lake house/skiing lodge for the weekend, a construction job in an economy where the industry has never been worse (and this is the short list). What I shouldn't need is God, on top of all the aforementioned blessings, to forgive me of my disobedience to Him.

But he does.

He did yesterday.

He does today,

And He will tomorrow. (ssshhhh...don't tell anyone, but it's true...I am going to commit some sort of sins sometime after today)

And I just don't get it.

I know that only a couple people read this, but I really would like to hear of other people's views on grace. Maybe by God's direction He will send someone to this post with insight. How did you realize to just accept it? Do you totally disagree with me? Maybe you don't believe in grace or Jesus for that matter. What are your thoughts?