I lashed out at my wife over something small. She had every right to walk away. She didn't. What she gave me wasn't what I deserved. It was grace. And it sounded a lot like 1 Samuel 7: a people who had wandered, who had no claim to make, crying out anyway and being answered. 

Grace does not wait for us to clean ourselves up. It meets us in the moment we know we were wrong, and then asks us to extend the same to someone else. 

God does not leave us with His holiness so that we fear Him. He leaves us with His grace so that we love and worship Him.