Over the past several weeks, I have felt a roller coaster of emotions such as I had never experienced before. Alternating feelings of intense stress and incredible relief, happiness and frustration, joy and pain, love and anger, loneliness and the need to be alone. I have had days when God seems the benevolent Father who overflows my cup with provision, and days when all I could see of Him seemed to be the underside of his foot as I felt crushed by abandonment.
I have failed in so many ways as a friend, as a sister, as a daughter, as a student, and as a wife. I have spoken in haste and said things I regret, laughed at jokes that were in no way funny, failed to speak kindness because silence was more comfortable and convenient. I have held onto bitterness from words I have long since claimed to have forgiven, and compared myself to others in a way that reduces them to mere objects of my envy. I have failed to honor my husband by keeping my eyes on him alone and by uplifting him with godly encouragement and consistent fervent prayer. In short, I have epically failed.
I say all of that to show you why none of that matters. Why? Because God looks down at my broken, messy, failure of a self and His first response is not to run or criticize or condemn, but to stay and wait. He stays and waits for me to run like a little child to my Father and crawl into his arms. He stays and waits for me to tell him I'm sorry for the millionth time, to ask him what I am supposed to do next, to beg him for the forgiveness He's already given but I struggle to accept.
In all of this, He never left me. He never smashed his fist into my stubborn skull in anger. Never once did He turn his back on my suffering or my success. And more than all of that, He was always right there waiting to offer me grace. More grace than I could ever drink in. More grace than my heart, or this whole world, could ever hold.
Over the past 5 years specifically, I have become a woman I would probably never have even accepted as a friend 5 years ago. I have been addicted to comparison and to compliments, full of anxiety, restless and irritable, and nearly joyless in my constant hurry to meet all the requirements of the perfect college student, the perfect girlfriend, the perfect wife, the perfect Christian. Never able to gain fulfillment from any of those things or efforts. If you knew me in high school, you probably don't know me now...which might explain why my faraway siblings sometimes have trouble remembering who I am now. That used to hurt me, but now as time has gone by, it only solidifies my understanding that I really have changed. In some ways, for the better. In many ways, for the worse.
The only thing that hasn't changed is the grace of God. The only one who hasn't failed me is my Savior. And if I could spend every moment nestled in the crook of his strong arm, I would gladly give up all my books and all my earthly fascinations...just to finally see the curve of His face, the smile on his lips, the scars on his hands. Just to drown in his grace for an eternity in a Heaven that won't care who I am or who I'm not. A Heaven that will only care to bow in worship at the feet of her King.
Where the failure of me is hidden by the glory of Him--my Creator--Father, Savior, Counselor, Friend.
