I spent so much of my life running. Running from my past. Running from mistakes. Running from forgiveness. Running from love. Running from Him. 12 years. 12 years to be exact. Even now I still find myself sometimes trying to run. Run from love that I know I don’t deserve. He has chased me down. He never stopped pursuing me. Beloved.
It’s so incredible. Quite mind-blowing actually, how he loves us. How he loves me. I had commitment issues and trust issues. I didn’t like opening up. I dreaded the word “vulnerable”. It sickened me. I shoved everything into a closet, so ashamed, that I’d rather pretend it didn’t happen. As if hiding my past made it all okay. And when I came to El Salvador, God told me, “Okay, it’s time to clean out the dirty closet.” In my mind, I ran, but at the same time I wanted it. I wanted to come from behind the curtain of the fake life. Secretly, somehow, I felt that the same grace that I wanted to accept, wasn’t quite big enough to cover me. I knew that Christ was my Lord and Savior, but somehow deep in my heart I subconsciously felt like I’d done just a little bit too much, gone just a little bit too far and His grace couldn’t possibly cover me. As if when He died He said, “I’ll die for these sins, but that one was just too much. I can’t cover that one. You are on your own.” I fought to be god of my own life and while I thought I was hiding everything from Him, I was really hiding everything from myself. I thought that by telling a pretty, fake version of my testimony, He wouldn’t know everything else I did.
In His great love and mercy, He shattered my twisted thoughts and my screwed up subconscious philosophy. He told me that He knows me better than I know myself, and all I was doing was hiding my past from myself. He told me that I needed to forgive myself and return to my first love. With that fake testimony...with the hiding...with the shame...also was a superficial relationship with Him. Superficial on my end. It broke me on the inside to think about my past and so I didn’t, therefore I was blinded to how loving, patient and full of grace He really is. I was aware that I was unaware of my depravity. My desperate need for Him.
Now, I have opened up a lot more. My teammates are my witnesses. He has been so patient and so merciful with me in this process, and I praise Him every time I think about it. I see pieces of who I really am, the fragments of my brokenness, and it disgusts me. I am wicked. I am rotten. I deserve to be damned to hell for all of eternity. In this recognition of my true nature, I’ve realized how beautiful He is. How gracious, righteous, compassionate, and pure He is. I’ve given Him the past that I was afraid that He might see and He has given me an overwhelming joy and rest. Because of His relentless love, I am still here. He has every right to wipe me off the face of this earth, but He hasn’t.
We are together. I am His Bride. For better or for worse. He is the One. He is the lover of my soul. He has crowned me with love and tender mercies. Each day, with the rising and setting of the sun, with the wind in the air, with the sweet words that He whispers during my quiet time with Him; He romances me, He wooes me. In Him I find healing, in His presence my wounds are bound. As He gently whispers, “Love of my life, look in my eyes. I have everything you need. You are my beloved, and I am yours.” And the wonderful thing is, is that it, our relationship, is not dependent on my love for Him, it is dependent on His love for me. It is a very good thing too, because I don’t love Him enough. My love for Him will never be enough, because I am not worthy to love Him. But He, He loves me with an unfailing, relentless, unchanging love.
In simplicity, I came back to my first love, and now I am on cloud 9, falling in love with the One who loves me the most.
It’s so incredible. Quite mind-blowing actually, how he loves us. How he loves me. I had commitment issues and trust issues. I didn’t like opening up. I dreaded the word “vulnerable”. It sickened me. I shoved everything into a closet, so ashamed, that I’d rather pretend it didn’t happen. As if hiding my past made it all okay. And when I came to El Salvador, God told me, “Okay, it’s time to clean out the dirty closet.” In my mind, I ran, but at the same time I wanted it. I wanted to come from behind the curtain of the fake life. Secretly, somehow, I felt that the same grace that I wanted to accept, wasn’t quite big enough to cover me. I knew that Christ was my Lord and Savior, but somehow deep in my heart I subconsciously felt like I’d done just a little bit too much, gone just a little bit too far and His grace couldn’t possibly cover me. As if when He died He said, “I’ll die for these sins, but that one was just too much. I can’t cover that one. You are on your own.” I fought to be god of my own life and while I thought I was hiding everything from Him, I was really hiding everything from myself. I thought that by telling a pretty, fake version of my testimony, He wouldn’t know everything else I did.
In His great love and mercy, He shattered my twisted thoughts and my screwed up subconscious philosophy. He told me that He knows me better than I know myself, and all I was doing was hiding my past from myself. He told me that I needed to forgive myself and return to my first love. With that fake testimony...with the hiding...with the shame...also was a superficial relationship with Him. Superficial on my end. It broke me on the inside to think about my past and so I didn’t, therefore I was blinded to how loving, patient and full of grace He really is. I was aware that I was unaware of my depravity. My desperate need for Him.
Now, I have opened up a lot more. My teammates are my witnesses. He has been so patient and so merciful with me in this process, and I praise Him every time I think about it. I see pieces of who I really am, the fragments of my brokenness, and it disgusts me. I am wicked. I am rotten. I deserve to be damned to hell for all of eternity. In this recognition of my true nature, I’ve realized how beautiful He is. How gracious, righteous, compassionate, and pure He is. I’ve given Him the past that I was afraid that He might see and He has given me an overwhelming joy and rest. Because of His relentless love, I am still here. He has every right to wipe me off the face of this earth, but He hasn’t.
We are together. I am His Bride. For better or for worse. He is the One. He is the lover of my soul. He has crowned me with love and tender mercies. Each day, with the rising and setting of the sun, with the wind in the air, with the sweet words that He whispers during my quiet time with Him; He romances me, He wooes me. In Him I find healing, in His presence my wounds are bound. As He gently whispers, “Love of my life, look in my eyes. I have everything you need. You are my beloved, and I am yours.” And the wonderful thing is, is that it, our relationship, is not dependent on my love for Him, it is dependent on His love for me. It is a very good thing too, because I don’t love Him enough. My love for Him will never be enough, because I am not worthy to love Him. But He, He loves me with an unfailing, relentless, unchanging love.
In simplicity, I came back to my first love, and now I am on cloud 9, falling in love with the One who loves me the most.