Every week, our storytelling leader sends us a blog prompt or topic to write about for the week. They’re usually insanely cool, BUT I’ve never used the prompt before.
Well, the one she sent a couple weeks ago caught my eye and I felt compelled to write about it.
This is what the email said:
what did you value before the race & what do you value now?
what is the biggest difference in your character now vs eight months ago?
describe who you are NOW in three words.
Before the Race, I was stuck in the endless, black hole of American Christianity. I loved God, but I thought I still had to “do stuff” in order to deserve him; in order to justify my mistakes, I had to fix all my problems on my own.
I strived to be perfect. It was what I thought everyone expected from me – my friends, my school, the church, my parents, and most importantly, myself. The standards I felt people were caging me into were actually just standards that I suffocated myself with. I felt as If I had to be a professional at life – in every aspect – or I was failing everyone. I had to be perfect or I would fail God.
Because of my drive to always appear like I “had it all together,” it caused me to become very religious, and less like Jesus. I had a skewed view of redemption, grace, and forgiveness. In turn, I expressed to others that broken view of God’s character. I was super judgemental about people who didn’t think the same way that I did. To a certain degree, I believed that God loved me more because I had my life together.
I did well in school, I went to church almost every Sunday, I lived on a YoungLife camp, I had a burning desire to travel and do missions. People looked up to me. But most of them never saw my heart. Most of them never saw my hidden pride, insecurity, doubt, fear, and shame. Most of them never knew that I always acted out of this lie that I was either too much, or not enough.
I used to value being known as a “perfect Christian girl.” I used to value order and control. I used to value people’s approval. I used to strive and strive and strive – always acting out of this insecurity that I need to be enough for God.
Now, after the Lord has so graciously revealed more of himself to me, I still desire those things. I still find myself falling back into old patterns of thinking and living. But they’re less appealing. Now, I can rightly identify them as sin.
The Lord has revealed life to me over the past eight months, and because of how sweet that is, I don’t want to continue choosing to live in death.
Perfection? Don’t look at me for it. Control? Even the things I think I’m in control of, I’m not. The Lord literally holds the entire world in his PALM. People’s approval? I still yearn for it. But as the Lord is leading me into deeper intimacy with him, I’m recognizing that my worth does not depend on others. It doesn’t even depend on me. The Lord has adopted me as his child. That’s all I am and all I ever will be.
WHO AM I?
I am a daughter.
I am beloved.
I am free.
I am filled with deep joy.
I am always too little for people. But I am never too much, and never not enough for the Lord.
I am flawed, I am prideful, and I make a lot of mistakes.
But I am loved. And because of who God is, I don’t have to be anything but his.
(photo by Ky McKenzie)
So, I’m coming home in a month and I’m still screwed up. I’m still learning DAILY and altering the way I live because of what I learn. I still believe a lot of lies about myself and about the Lord. But I also believe a lot of truth about who God is and who I am. PRAISE that he doesn’t expect anything of me but to be his child.
If you gain anything from reading this I hope it has something to do with grace. My life is covered with it. I am defined by it. I don’t deserve it and never will.
But Jesus recklessly chases after me so that I realize he died for it. He died so that I could live in grace.
”Alyssa, I am SO PROUD of you.” The Lord just told me that as I was proofreading this blog. He wanted me to know that he is proud of me (what the actual heck, God. I can’t believe you love me that much to tell me that).
I think he really wants you to know that too.
God is proud of YOU. Right now. Right where you are. Stop striving and trying to earn him. Be still. Just be his kid.
He died for you to realize that you can live in freedom and grace. And not only to realize it, but to find yourself in the middle of an ocean of it. I pray that the darkness of Satan’s lies are ripped from your eyes – I pray that you are flooded with light and, as you become aware of truth, find yourself drowning in the Lord’s undeserved kindness.
I am not the same girl I was before I left America. And I am not defined by my past. It’s dead. I am new. I’m going to start living like it.
Thanks for reading. Seriously, it means the world to me.
-Lyss
