I Believe.
I believe in God’s unconditional love and abounding grace. I believe that He offers us His love and grace with no strings attached, but that we have a hard time understanding what that means. I believe that in order to fully accept God’s love and grace we have to accept ourselves and learn to love ourselves. I spent many years of my life only seeing all that was wrong with me and why I was not a “good Christian.” I finally realized that by putting myself down all the time and never believing in myself, I was not believing in what God had created or what He had given me. If God could love me, couldn’t I love myself, even just a little? I could go on for much longer about this experience, but right now all I will say that three years have past since this “revelation” occurred and my relationship with God has gone through a transformation. But, its still not always easy to for me to receive God’s love and grace. I still struggle and I still need to be kicked in the butt by God. I still have issues I need to work through- shocking, right? And I believe that when you are going through something, that God will find a way to reach you. For me, I most recently experienced this while reading The Ragamuffin Gospel by Brennan Manning. In the beginning pages he states, “God not only loves me as I am, but also knows me as I am.” This is what I believe. God knows me better then anyone or anything possibly can. He knows me better then I know myself. He knows all the sins I have committed, He sees all my mistakes as they are being made, He is aware of every one of my faults. But, despite all of that, He still loves me, He takes me the way I am- broken. And He wants me to take myself the way I am- His beloved child. Lastly, I believe that I am ready for a challenge, I am ready to continue transforming myself and my relationship with God, I am ready to accept God’s love and grace, and I am ready to accept myself. This may be cliché, but hey, I am a little cliché sometimes.
