I know god’s conscious flows through me and can heal me instantly.

Instant is not the only speed grace comes at, though it is the one that gets the stories told about it. A candle lit in a hospital chapel at three in the morning rarely produces a thunderclap. What it often produces is a person who can walk back to the ward.

Whatever you call the thing that flows through — spirit, grace, the plain fact of being held by something larger than the situation — it seems to work at both speeds. Sudden when it is sudden. Patient the rest of the time, which is most of the time.