There is someone peering through my eyes from the very depths of my being.
Someone is reaching out and clawing at the seals within my heart.
Someone is knocking at the door to my mind and whispering its secret password.
I often feel that who I am inside is too messy to be shown to the world and so she has to sit patiently dormant until I am alone or with the few people who I trust enough to not judge her or cage her back up again.
I pity her sometimes.
It's not that I am afraid of her, but I don't trust her.
I don't trust her to understand the world or to know the right things to say. She's too complicated to explain to a stranger and she has too many problems that need to be worked out with God first.
She will forever need to be molded and changed and remolded again.
But that is the nature of the beast within, she will never be good enough.
And I do not say that out of self-deprecation, but out of the acknowledgement that she will always need saving. She will be let out into the sunshine and do a lot of good for a while. But then all too soon God will point out another flaw in the fabrication of her human flesh and she will need to be retrained, the collar re-attached, the muzzle re-applied once more. While it may seem like a terrifying, oppressive situation to continually go through, I am coming to peace with the fact that God is sovereign through all of that. In some way, a way that I cannot comprehend, all of the muck that I continuously feel and do has already been forgiven. I may not feel like it has at some points and I often have no idea how in the world I am measuring up and how I can live a normal life without being constantly on my knees, feeling unworthy and incredibly grateful. But maybe that's the point. Maybe the point is that we always do feel unworthy, because really, we aren't worthy at all.
But that doesn't seem to add up to everything I have been taught about the power of Jesus. His love and his name alone should be able to take away those constant feelings of unworthiness right? Shouldn't I be able to live every day without feeling like I need to do something else to feel satisfied and like God is "happy" with me? Shouldn't the word of God be able to speak into my life and into my heart and set me free from those feelings of not being good enough?
Why can't I face the fact that I am not good enough and that I never will be? Well no, the real question is how can I face that and be able to live joyfully without feeling guilty for my failings and feeling like I'm being a hypocrite for living that way? I'm not quite sure how to do that.
But I am learning. And I always will be.
One thing I know is that grace is such a beautiful concept that should not be withheld. God saw it fit to give us grace and pardon us by making His Son pay for our unruliness even while we were still doing it in front of His face. So who am I to deny that same grace to others?
I have never been left alone by God.
He has been by my side through the very good and the very, very bad and He has loved me through it.
He said he will never let me go and I believe that with every fiber in my imperfect body and mind.
