Even Me

This post is not funny. It’s not even remotely funny.

This is something that has been on my heart for more than a few weeks now.

Where do I start? I’m sorry if my thoughts are scattered. I apologize for how rushed this post sounds, also. Oh, and I apologize to my poor computer who is going to endure a lot of abuse from my fingertips here in a second.

God.

A few weeks ago, my life started to change. Somehow, I found myself at one of the lowest points that I had ever been at in my entire life. I wasn’t sure how I had let myself get that low, but there I was. Lost as ever. I was stuck in a cycle of self-pity and self-destruction. I hated myself. I hated everything in my life. I seemed fine on the outside, but I was so broken on the inside. I tried to separate school from church, church from home, home from friends, and friends from etc. But somehow, everything started to mix together until everything became unbearable.

Long story short, I turned to God. Needless to say, it took a while for me to return to God, but I did. Slowly but surely. See, the thing about God is – whether you know it or not, He always has a plan. That tricky little (or not so little) Lord above us knows everything about us.

That’s what killed me.

Throughout my entire life, I’ve struggle with the concept of forgiveness and trust. It takes a lot for me to trust someone. Once you’ve lost my trust… you’d never get it back. So, with family, ex-friends, and everything else… I kept hatred in my heart. I would continue on my “walk with God”, but I kept everything bottled up inside.

Now here’s the thing: that’s not how it works.

It’s like filling a cup up with your feelings. Let’s say that your heart is a cup. You fill most of it with the love that you have for the people close to you. Let’s say that this love is represented by water. Now, let’s add the hatred in. Let’s say that the hatred is represented by… coke. It eats at anything and everything, including the inside of your stomach. Anyways, even just a teaspoon of coke changes the entire composition of what’s inside the cup. Then, when that day comes, where your heart is so overwhelmed – let’s say that someone walks by and slams his/her fists down on the table – your cup spills. What comes out isn’t just the love. It’s the mixture of everything that you had kept inside the cup. You can’t tell that it’s water anymore because of the coke that corrupted it.

Life is the same way.

I kept everything inside until I didn’t know who I was. Then, a few weeks ago, I started to really give myself to the Lord. Maybe it’s because I’m finally graduating. Maybe it was just the right timing.

I know what you’re thinking. A few weeks? Oh, please. You can’t be proud of that. You could easily fail tomorrow. Where is all of this coming from? Oh, trust me. I’ve been fighting the urge to type this for so long. After the Ash Wednesday service tonight, I just couldn’t help myself.

I used to think that too. I would always “go back to God.” But, I would never give all of myself. This time, I started to really try to give all of myself to Him. Because quite frankly, I didn’t have anything left to lose. I started by physically removing things in my life that I resorted to instead of seeking God. I won’t name those things online, but… yeah. That’s when things started to change.

The way I prayed changed. It was no longer an empty string of words. It was me taking time to really pray for a change in my life. To pray for the needs of my friends. To pray for the people who are hurting all over the world. To pray for those who cry out to God everyday. I started to pray that God would shape me and refine me. I wanted to become someone who would make Him happy. I prayed that He would help me to not hate myself anymore.

Then other things in my life started to change. Praise was no longer just an act of standing and singing words half-heartedly. No, praise meant surrendering my all without caring what others thought. Praise meant physically showing that I surrendered my all to Him. Praise started to mean that I glorified God through songs. Whether I was at church, or at my house by myself, praise and worship started to become an intimate time between me and God.

Seeking God meant that I had to stop blocking my ears.

There’s no point in asking God to speak to us if we refuse to open our ears and hearts to receive His word.

I would as God to speak to me all of the time, but I never listened. Once I finally stopped and opened my heart to Him, I started hearing Him… EVERYWHERE. It’s incredible how much He tries to communicate with us. On that note, I kept asking for forgiveness. For the longest time, all I could pray was, “I’m sorry, God. Please for give me. God, I’m so sorry. I’m sorry. Please forgive me.” What I didn’t realize, however, was that He had already forgiven me. Even before I was born, He had died on the cross for me. And you. And yeah, that hobo on the side of the highway. He had already forgiven me of my sins when I repented. But I didn’t see anything change. Why?

I didn’t even forgive myself.

How could I possibly expect to feel a change – to feel forgiven – if I didn’t forgive myself? If I hated myself so much, how could I expect to feel how much God and others loved me? If we close our eyes, we can’t see what God has put before us. We could be standing at the top of the highest mountain and still see nothing – as long as we refuse to open our eyes.

Opening my eyes meant that I surrendered all of myself… all of the time. It meant that I chose my words carefully. It meant that I chose the songs I listen to carefully. I prayed. I read. I sang. I did all of these things – because I wanted to give God my all. Now, I KNOW that these things aren’t hard to do. It’s just a matter of disciplining ourselves. It sounds easy, in theory. SO WHY DON’T WE DO IT?

Surrendering means that we give ALL of ourselves ALL of the time. It means asking God to break our heart for what breaks His. We are called as His people to be a light to this world. We are called to be different. We are called to be different. I recently attended Acquire the Fire, down in Atlanta. I am still wearing my admission bracelet. Why? On it, it says, “NORMAL’S NOT ENOUGH.” It serves as a reminder to me throughout my day. I’m not going to pretend like I don’t need a constant reminder. Just because I haven’t “messed up” yet doesn’t mean that things got easier. But when we choose to give all ourselves to God, He will show Himself to us all of the time.

Today, at the service, I volunteered to be at the foot-washing station. I asked God to use me to minister to people.

The very first person I washed was a little boy named Samuel. When I asked if he had any special needs, he only asked that I pray for his grandmother who couldn’t walk down stairs anymore. As I prayed, my heart started to … I don’t know. It just started doing… something.

As the night progressed, I had requests like:
“Pray that I’ll learn to help others more and that God will give me the capacity to carry burdens for others.”

“Pray that I will learn to quit being a perfectionist and just trust God. Pray that I won’t get overwhelmed by tests at school and in life.”

“Pray for my relationship expectations.”

And so on and so forth.

The more I prayed, the more that I realized that every single request matched what I wanted to pray for myself. As I prayed for others, I was actually the one who was ministered to. As these people cried out to God, He used me to give them strength. Even if it was just a single prayer session, the tears and hugs that I received was more than enough to light my heart on fire.

On the way home, I couldn’t stop praising God out loud. Yes, I was that crazy person talking to herself at the red light. I felt so… ALIVE. The more I surrender to God, the more I feel like I’m finally starting to become ALIVE again.

I used to think that I needed to be perfect to approach God. That’s one of the reasons why I didn’t go to God for several recent years. I’ll be honest. For YEARS, it’s been a back-and-forth struggle of trust and forgiveness. I was so afraid that I wasn’t good enough. So, if I’m already so screwed up, why even try right? If I’ll just fall again… isn’t it just better to stay down here so I don’t get even more bruises and cuts?

I was so, so wrong.

God doesn’t call just the perfect to repent. He calls the sinners and low-lifes. It’s his AMAZING GRACE that saves us! He SAVES us over and over and over and over again. God doesn’t take the perfect and make them… perfect again, He takes the broken and hurting – and heals them and puts them back together. Jesus DIED on the cross for OUR sins so that we might be saved through Him. He came to this world BECAUSE we aren’t perfect. He didn’t come to cast away the sinners – He came to SAVE them. God calls us to live our lives in Him. No matter how far away we stray, He’s always waiting for us to come home to Him.

So I’m not sure where else I’m going with this. I just REALLY REALLY needed to get all of this out there. If my heart exploded, I apologize. I’m not even going to re-read any of that. If you’re still reading this, know that I love you. I’m not saying any of this to judge anyone. If anyone needs to be judged, it’s ME. I just felt like I NEEDED to share this if I wanted to be able to sleep tonight. God loves you, so so so much. And He’s always there. Even in your darkest moment. And you are so precious to Him.

Jesus died for the ones who loved Him. He saved them...

and amazingly, even me.

He died... for you.