This is
hard. God is speaking very clearly to my heart right now, and it’s really
intimate personal stuff. My preference would be to keep it to myself and just
let it be between me and God. I would rather let Him deal with me privately,
without anyone else having to know, but I feel very strongly that He wants what
I’m learning now to be shared, and I have to obey.
God’s been
teaching me a ton the past few weeks about the kind of woman He wants me to be…
the character that He is starting to form in me. What kind of person do I want
to be? Things like joyful, patient, gentle, and honest obviously make the list,
but the overwhelming thing that God’s been laying on my heart is a passion and
desire for INTEGRITY. God has given me a sincere longing for authenticity and
purity in my life. This is very new for me. I’ve lived most of my life with
secrets, lies, and deceptions. I’m not proud of a lot of my decisions, and I
could give excuses to try and justify my actions…blame it on people’s unrealistic
expectations or the fact that I didn’t feel safe enough to be real with my
struggles, but the truth is that there were many areas that I really had no
desire to change. I was content to live without integrity and honesty because I
didn’t see the payoff to being real. I thought I had it all figured out…the
secret formula to living in both worlds. As long as I was still able to look
good on the outside, I could do whatever I wanted and just cover it up. I lied
to many people that trusted me, and for that I want to publicly apologize. My
pride and stubbornness kept me from exposing the darkness in my heart and
admitting that I was wrong. But I’m realizing now how completely empty that kind
of life is. I might have looked ok to people, but my heart was dead. I was not
living with any integrity, and I was the one suffering for it. What good is love
if it’s not genuine? Empty and worthless because I can’t give away what I don’t
have. How far does imitation patience go? Not very far. How long can you really
last pretending to be humble? It just wasn’t working anymore. I hated lying,
sneaking, and always trying to cover my tracks, but I had gotten myself in so
deep I didn’t know how to break the cycle. No matter how hard I wanted to do
things right, I still just kept screwing up. I wasn’t proud of my decisions, so
I hid them. I was terrified that I would somehow be exposed for who I really
was and that my carefully built house of cards would come crashing down. I’ve
been listening to the Casting Crowns song “Prodigal” a lot lately. The line
that hits me every time says “I drag your name back through the mud that you
first found me in.” I see so much of myself in that song. God would pull me out
and I would go right back. Even when I got to the point of finally being ready
to change things, it felt impossible to get enough distance away from my
struggles to actually make any progress. I felt stuck.
So then how
does it happen…what does it look like? How do I begin to reconcile the things I
want to be part of my character with the truth of the current ugliness in my
heart? Where do I even start to dig out the junk and allow God to rebuild me
from the ground up…imbedding his character in me and weaving His love, joy,
peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control
into the fabric and fiber of the core of who I am? I feel like these past 7
months on the World Race have been a huge blessing for me if in no other way
than to give me a safe place to figure this all out. To pull me out from the
midst of it, and allow me to look at it from the outside for once. God’s been
teaching me over and over this year about how light exposes darkness…the light
of His truth makes all things visible. I can’t hide and I can’t pretend with
God…He sees it all. He sees my faults and failures, yet His love doesn’t
waiver. He’s been there with me through it all, and He’s never given up on me.
I am so grateful for God’s relentless pursuit of my heart. I feel like I’m
being given an incredible gift this year…a chance for a fresh start.
As I start
the process of letting God rebuild my character His way, with honesty and
integrity at the core, I have no presumption that I’m going to get it all right
this time. I still expect to struggle, but my desire is that I don’t shove
anything back into those dark places that God has cleared out. Light exposes
darkness. I know I still have a long way to go, but I’m committed to it. I
don’t just want to look loving, patient, kind, and gentle, I truly want to BE
that.
I invite
anyone who’s reading this to please pray for me and help hold me accountable to
living a life of integrity.
