Hanging on to a crumpled list of "what to do's or else".....else I wouldn't meet the criteria for whomever held the magic wand of approval.......I choked back life like bad medicine. It felt a curious tangle inside my head, like leaning in close to a radio trying to listen through the static. I wanted to, really wanted to be good enough. I just couldn't seem to find the end of "enough" and the channel kept changing. I was too much of one thing and too little of another; too small, too quiet, too silly, too introspective, too carefree, too naive, too untrusting, , too pretty to be funny, too funny to be pretty....I wrote them all down in an angry scribble and read them over and over to myself.
The standard left me tired and I found myself wanting to find a corner and tear up a whole box of kleenex and build a nest with it and stay there. Because at least it would be soft; softer than the world around me. So I drew myself a big breath of air and puffed myself up like a blowfish to defend myself against the assessments I couldn't fix and grew barnacles of pride and fear. Even God, especially God, couldn't fix me, wouldn't fix me, I wagered. Because He didn't seem to live in my neighborhood and had His back turned to play with the people who made the grade.
Since God had moved away, I was on my own and I would try; try harder and more and better. Try was what I banked on; bartered with, because try was all I owned. The truths of what God said wandered around my head like pinballs, clanking loud but never finding a place to rest until I spewd them out and flashed "Game Over" out my eyeballs. I couldn't see my way clear. I couldn't see my way at all. I couldn't see me. To stave off the sense of falling out of grace with the world, I decided somewhere in my scared heart that I was better than it was and I didn't need their grace anyway. And there's where Grace found a heartbeat.
It was in the red zone but it was enough for Him to work with, that pulse. It beat restless and rebellious to grab what it needed to keep a spark. Grace entered stage "bang open door" and came holding a mirror. The reflection sparked bright like turned to the sun because the Son held it. There was blood on the handle. My reflection had dug into His wrist and twisted deep to the other side. My depravity sneered back at me and I was laid flat. I mistook His rescue for a courtroom and clamored off the floor to escape. I heard the gavel bang down hollow and mean in my ears. And then there was silence.
ALL RISE. "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe in the good news!" He walked toward me and reached out and I flinched back cowardly. Out of a small pot of my burnt up self help, He scooped out some ashes and drew a small cross on my forehead. "This one's mine," He said quietly and reached for the nothing I had to give Him. The blood was gone from His wrists. They'd been healed with scars. I looked closer and gasped to see my name written on them.
I'd needed grace after all. And His was mine, unending.
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