Literature has been a means of conveying messages for centuries. Various authors, from Aesop to Shakespeare, have used writing as a way to convey a message to their audience. All of these authors are widely respected and admired for their works. Flannery O'Connor is an author who transcends her peers and breaks with traditional secular teaching. She is widely known for her use of Christian themes to convey a message about our world's need for a savior in Jesus Christ. Her writing style is unique in that she conveys spiritual messages in everyday stories that are fun to read. This is important because it creates a medium in which she can spread the gospel intelligently. The picture books stated: "Her expert craftsmanship, her uncanny capacity for characterization, the depth and intensity of her morality, combined in strict discipline, make her one of the most respected authors of this generation” (Books, Image 1). Flannery O'Connor uses various themes to convey a religious message, but the two that have a big impact are grace and suffering. The themes of grace and suffering can be seen in his short stories, "A Good Man Is Hard To Find", "The River", and "The Lame Shall Enter First". The themes of grace and suffering in Flannery O'Connor's short stories are used to depict Jesus Christ dying on the cross for our sins. Mary Flannery O'Connor was born on March 25, 1925 in Savannah, Georgia to Catholic parents. O'Connor showed a strange sense of the world from a young age. This strange attitude later revealed itself as a central character in his short stories. In an interview where O'Connor talked about the strangeness of her early childhood, she exclaimed: "[I] preferred these [chickens] with one green eye and one orange...I wanted... middle of paper... to what he did. “He had ignored his own child to feed his view of himself. He saw the Light-Eyed Devil...looking at him through Johnson's eyes. His self-image shriveled until all was black before him” (O’Connor 190). O'Connor used Sheppard as a representation of the man. Norton's suffering caused Sheppard to re-examine his spiritual beliefs. If Norton had not suffered for Sheppard, Sheppard would not have reconsidered his walk with God. O'Connor used Norton's suffering to represent Jesus Christ suffering for man so that we would not have to live in eternal punishment. Both Norton and Rufus were in Sheppard's life as "an instrument of suffering", so that Sheppard could fully realize his sins and repent. (McMullen 114). O'Connor saw the importance of Jesus' suffering on Christ for man. She understood that through the death of Jesus we have grace.