“The waves toss and turn and toss and turn as does my soul. The constant inrush of the ocean splashing shells on the shore. Shells of my shame being exposed as the waves exit the shore. Another wave comes bringing my sin. And another with every lie I have ever believed. All at the foot of the shore in the open. I pick it up and throw it as far back into the ocean as I can. Hoping it is gone for good. But eventually they come back again, washing up on the shore even bigger than before.
Why does it not go away? Why can’t they just be lost at sea forever? I do not want myself exposed. All the shame I have, the sin, the lies. It will not go away. It stays there. My soul spits it out, but does not know where to put it. And I sit there, carrying the weight of it all. All on my own.
Before I know it, Jesus is sitting next to me. He wants to take it. He wants to take all that I have to offer. But I do not want to give it to him. I want to hold onto it. It is my shame. My guilt. My junk. And I have to deal with it on my own. But I cannot. My soul cannot take it. I cannot take it. The weight is just too big for me. But I want to so badly do it myself. To fix myself. To get rid of my shame. To get rid of my guilt. But that is the very thing keeping me from him. The barrier between me and him. I cannot see him because I have let my guilt and shame pile up so high that I cannot see my God.
My arms are crumbling under the weight of carrying it all on my own. But I look over into the sand and see that He has drawn something. A cross. And the cross is inside a circle. And I now what He means. He wants to put all that weight on the cross. All on him. To carry my shame. My guilt. And I now once I do that I’ll truly see him. But, I do not know if I can. I mean I am already exposed. My arms are breaking and trembling under all the weight, but I am the one who let it get to this point. I am the one who needs to deal with it. It is my junk. My shame. My guilt. But his invitation is so sweet. I want it so bad. With everything in me. But my stubbornness holds me back. I do not want to put it down, because I feel the weight is mine to carry.
The shame is mine. The guilt is mine. The responsibility is mine.
But that cross, the cross is mine too. The freedom Jesus offers is mine. The grace he gives is mine. The mercy he gives is mine. But I cannot hold on to both. I have to give one up to obtain the other. In order to receive his grace and mercy I have to give up my shame and guilt. To let it go. To put it on the cross. Once I do that, it is not mine anymore. It is his. But how can I give him something so bad in exchange for something so good? Why in the world does he want to carry the weight of all my sin? So still I carry it. Wrestling back and forth between what I should do.
Again He draws in the sand. He puts a hole in the middle of the cross. Then all of a sudden the hole gets bigger and bigger to fill out the circle. the circle is the same size as the pile in my hands. The offer is too good to resist. I drop it in, and as I do, the shells turn into sand right before my eyes. All that weight is lifted from me, and I realize the weight for him is so much lighter than or me. And now I can finally breathe. Air fills my lungs and I can see. Truly see. See that God is right next to me. He has been waiting so long for me to drop everything that has blinded me from seeing him for who he truly is. Top stop seeing him through all my shame and sin.
To see him in full. To reach over and touch him. To talk to his face rather than through a barrier. To sit side by side. Finally. To not just throw everything back in the ocean for it to come up again. But to put it where it belongs. In his care. Because from the moment he first sat down, the beach was not just mine anymore. It was his. The ocean was not mine, it was his. The shells are his. My shame is his. My sin is his. My guilt is his.
I am his
And to continue to give him what belongs to him. The best and the worst of me. The real, the raw, the honest me. And to keep seeing him as him. To sit by his side and talk and laugh and cry. To become who I am meant to be.
His”
Before I left my race I received a key that has the word “mine” engraved on it. I am supposed to ask the Lord what that means to me and then give the key away to whoever He calls me to give it to. This vision he gave me kind of redefined what I thought this meant to me. I thought it meant that He is mine, but it also means that I am His. That nothing belongs to me. It is not mine. Even the things I believe are, are truly not. It is all his. But the things are not just his, I am his as well. He does not just want my sin and shame and guilt, He wants me. Me, Kyla Reese Calderon, as a person. And that is who I am. His.
