Hard lessons

"Israel was a spreading vine; he brought forth fruit for himself. As his fruit increased, he built more altars; as his land propered, he adorned his sacred stones. Their heart is deceitful, and now they must bear their guilt." Hosea 10:1,2a

To be truthful, the summer has been difficult to weather spiritually. A bit of spiritual isolation, a helping of complacency, a generous pinch of self-denial. The tendency of perfectionists, I think, is to become consumed with outward appearances. Then it becomes all about our reputation and the impression we make on others instead of what we really are. Anyways, I found myself experiencing little interest in the DAT, little interest in daily devotionals, little interest in this blog (why subject myself to spiritual honesty & conviction??) within my first few weeks at home. The bad habits my superficial mindset was breeding were proliferating. I was wasting time and miserable because of it, yet afraid to 'fess up and repent.

Then I hit an all-time low of guilt and conviction about how I was not living by the Spirit and allowing things to spin out of control. One sin in particular was the root of my feelings of desperation and helplessness. I confessed to, thankfully, a wise Christian mentor whom God has fixed in my life--my mom, and for the first time, got a big fat source of low self esteem and brokenness into the open. The funny thing was, all these years I had expected myself to be truly repentant and humbled on confessing this sin to others. Nope. A good deal of anger, bitterness, and pride spewed up as I told of my actions, motives, and thought processes. How deceitful the heart can be! Mom had some convicting words for me to swallow too. My heart was far more superficial and hard than I had ever cared to realize. Sitting there, having just confessed some of the deepest, darkest things about myself, I was not sure if those who knew could ever look me perfectly straight in the eyes again, and I wanted to punish myself by curling up in a corner and refusing forgiveness or any second chances until I felt I was worthy to accept them. I wanted to be worthy of forgiveness and renewal on my terms. Because of course my faith walk and my life were all about me and how good I was before God.

On the day that this happened, my siblings were performing their last Shakespeare play in the park with a youth troupe and we had all been intending to go. I knew my presence would mean a lot to them, but I stubbornly sat in my room as my parents sadly left by themselves. Sitting there, crumpling up the 40th tissue, I suddenly felt God telling me, Get up and go enjoy the play. It doesn't matter what you've done. I give good gifts to all of my children. And I realized that the voice was right. God was only forgiving me as He had forgiven scores of prostitutes, murderers, and liers throughout history. Now it was time for me to accept that same grace and go LIVE and sin no more. So I did. I rushed to the play, laughed and clapped with the audience, took a zillion pictures Sonia and Nate, and managed to turn a corner that day in the way I dealt with my mistakes. I tasted grace just like the Apostle Paul had--the same sweet, loving gift--and I was thankful, even relieved.

And in the weeks since then, it's been a slow, but steady embracing of a Sprit-filled existence. I know I've hit upon the only way to live a truly happy life and I can't wait to see where it will lead me eventually. But I've experienced no mountaintop, and it's hard to be a zealous Christian. So many distractions and so many not-overtly-wrong things can lead me off the straight and narrow path. I have to choose to avoid old temptations, and sometimes I fail to choose what is right.

Now I simply know more than ever what it means to rebound after making a mistake. I don't have to separate myself from the love of God anymore. He has brought me to a new level of ability to relate to brokenness and sin and may He be glorified through it, Amen?

"The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love." Psalm 103:8