Lets get one thing straight: one of my strengths is connectedness. Im wired to see the connections between things and thats how God speaks to me most frequently. Right now, theres a cloud over me of love and grace. It has come up over and over again. Sometimes its a massive storm, but most of the time, especially lately, its a gentle mist. Im not gonna lie, I want the massive storm, but I know God is being so gentle with me. As I write this, the first rain of our trip has come and it is definitely a massive storm. God is so funny sometimes. Anyway, I digress from the topic at hand.
I’ve been
learning a lot about grace and love. Grace is founded in acceptance. I have a difficult
time accepting all the parts of me which by association means I have a hard
time loving myself. When I am doing all the right things, Im better at loving
myself, but how often am I doing ALL the right things? I dont see myself as
Christ sees me, so I cant love myself the way Christ loves me. God doesnt
wait for me to be perfect to love me. His word says that he loved me while I
was still a sinner. Boom, mind blown. Hes clearly a whole lot better at loving
me than I am and thats the point.
I’ve probably
read 1 Corinthians 13 five times in the last week and a half. I read and prayed
over it before I gave hard feedback for the first time. I read it again when I
was having a hard time trusting someone who I was assuming had lied to me. As I
tried to best figure out the situation and what to do, I was given some wise
words: We are called to love and love always trusts. That night I was lying in
my hammock and returned to 1 Corinthians again. Love always protects, always
trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Reading this only brought more
questions as I tried to figure out what always trusting meant in real life. Trusting people is hard and as I wrestled with this I said, “I’m tired of being hurt.” These
discussions led to finding this: When Love has no evidence, it believes the
best. When the evidence is adverse, it hopes for the best. And when hopes are
repeatedly disappointed, it still courageously waits. I love this explanation of love because that
person who gave me the advice was right: We are called to love.
Yesterday I was sitting in the archery pit thinking about
the struggles I’ve been having in the last week and how I felt like Id fallen
back to my insecure behavior. It was true; I had fallen back to it, but I was able to see why and give myself grace. Since I made so many changes and matured emotionally in the last two years, I haven’t had to make 50 new friends. I haven’t walked into an entirely new environment with no one I really know or trust. I wasn’t even thinking about giving myself grace, it just came naturally for the first time. It was okay that I was confused and didn’t know what to do or how to go after what I needed. God is radically changing how I view myself and living in grace is so much easier than being perfect.
