In his eminent kindness, Hashem focuses on one virtue…
In his eminent kindness, Hashem focuses on one virtue of the baal teshuvah that no tzaddik who is free of sin possesses his efforts to come back home, and his desire to repair the damage he has wrought.
— from The Air Traffic Controller (God)
In the book
Do not despair at what the accounting turns up, because repentance was built into the world before anything else — God conceived of teshuvah, of return, at the very beginning, so that a flawed creation could stand at all. In His patience He holds off, again and again, on a soul that has not yet straightened out, and He prizes in the one who returns a particular courage that the never-fallen never had to find. Do one act of service. The Controller runs the whole sky for the sake of others; fly the same way. — The Air Traffic Controller (God)