Do you ever just wake up in a bad mood? Today was one of those days for me; I didn't even want to get out of bed, not just because I was feeling down, but also because I didn't want to face people and risk getting myself into trouble. So what did I do? I went back to sleep, or at least I tried! As I laid in my bed with my blanket over my head, God brought to my heart Romans 5:8 "But God shows and clearly proves His [own] love for us by the fact that while we were still sinners, Christ (the Messiah, the Anointed One) died for us." If you read my last blog post, you'll know that the thing I've been begging for is love and God has been showing me that He is the only one who can truly love me in a way that will satisfy me, fill my holes, and mend my broken places. Let me rephrase that, because honestly, I have known this for a very long time, but God is helping me to actually live the truth and not just speak it, write it, or even say I believe it.
When God whispered this verse to me, He brought me to a place of peace, of awe and humility. I was reminded that I am loved, and that His love is MORE than enough for me. But I was also reminded that I don't deserve His love, making this love all the more beautiful and amazing.
I just love the way God meets us where we are and gives us exactly what we need. He has been doing that more and more lately, which maybe is a part of this whole satisfaction thing. Last night I was really struggling with something. That whole insecurity thing came up again, the insecurity of belonging, of being accepted, and loved. God comforted me in this by speaking to me once more about His love and who I am in Him. He reminded me that I am His child. I am adopted into His family and I have His name. Because honestly, I struggle with my name. I have struggled because If feel branded, tainted because from where I have come. I know that this is just a lie that the enemy uses to take me down, but it has been a true fight. One of the lies that I have been told is that I am the combination of the two hardest people to love, which means I am difficult to love. My name connects me to those people, to my past, to all the things that have haunted me, and this has caused me to despise my name, wish I could separate myself from it and take on a new name. A new name would cleanse me, make me no longer tainted and give me a new brand. But just as so many other things, I have looked for this new name in the wrong place. I have looked for it in a literal sense, wishing to actually change my name, but there are two things that must be learned from this. Actually, there are probably more than two things, but I will start here.
(1) God did not give me a new family so that I could erase my past. He wants to use what I have been through for His good. And my name is evidence of where He has brought me. I might be branded, but I am not tainted. I am branded in the sense that I have come from that particular place, but as I said, that brand is only there to show others what God has done and bring Him the glory…using what was meant for evil for His good!!!
(2) Once again, I have been searching in the wrong place again…begging for something. God wants me to know that if I look in the right place I will see that I already have a new name. I am God's child and I have been adopted in His family, so even if I don't have a literal new name, I have a spiritual or metaphorical new name, because I belong to God. I am a daughter of the most High King. If that's not an upgrade, I don't know what is!!!
Another thing that God reminded me of last night is 2 Peter 1:3 "His divine power has given us everything we need for life…" So even when it hurts, even when I'm struggling with all of these things, He is more than enough for me. He has given us EVERYTHING that we need!!! That is why looking in other places won't do. Jesus is the only ONE who can truly SATISFY our souls in EVERYTHING!!!
He also brought me to a new place of understanding about His understanding. I never got such a simple concept until this morning. It just hadn't clicked; I knew the truth, I just didn't understand it. In the past, I had often struggled with the concept of Jesus understanding everything that we have been through; He understands every pain, every guilt, every shame. I just didn't get it. I constantly asked God how He could understand if He hadn't actually gone through it. Jesus was free of sin, how does He know what it feels like to be ashamed of what you've done or know what the experiences of my past feels like, because He didn't experience it. I kept on asking how?! Well, God showed me how…and I'm sorry if this is one of those duh moments, but it was really significant for me to finally get it.
Jesus understands all of our sin, all of our guilt, all of our pain, all of our shame, because when Jesus died upon the cross, He became sin and He bore all of our pain, guilt, and shame!!! WOW! He took the weight of the whole world on His shoulders. That means every single sin of every single person that has ever and will ever exist was placed upon Jesus while He was on the cross. I've only ever thought about the physical pain that Jesus experienced when He was crucified, but that is so small, so insignificant compared to the supernatural pain that He endured when he bore everyone's pain, sin, guilt, and shame. He gets it because He fellt ALL of it!!!
And because of this…because of Christ's sacrifice we are made whole. We are new creations, adopted into a new family, with a new name. WE ARE FREE!!!
I think that's what God is teaching me as I fight out all these things…He is teaching me to LIVE in FREEDOM!!!
