Redeemed!

There’s been an odd build up for about a month now.  It comes in all the vast directions. Its an entity, like its got this life of its own, but then it scatters and is everywhere.

I’ve had something to write for awhile, but then I sit down. I look at my blank and ready screen. And nothing. Nothing comes. How can nothing come? Its all here.

It’s here when I wash the dishes.

It’s here when I drive.

It’s here as I work on project after project after project.

My thoughts, my conversation, my God. It’s all here. This in-motion, verbal brain of mine. It literally screams sometimes, ‘SIT DOWN! WRITE!’

And there it was, all ready for me to blast out each time. And nothing! Writer’s block? I don’t know, but nothing came. I gave it to God and said, I hear it in my head day in and day out. Its got different variations and changing themes.  The story starts and another and another and another and God, help me write this!

So this isn’t a blog, it isn’t a story, it’s probably not even a good rant.  It’s just something I gotta purge out of me.  And it may come out hodgepodge, jumbled and all over the place. I can promise you this, I’m just gonna talk to my God and you all can listen in, if you so desire.

God,

Thank you.

Thank you.

No, I don’t know think you heard me (I know you did).  THANK YOU.

I was mess 5 years ago, I was a mess 5 months ago.  When do I get to not be a mess anymore?

I am a much better mess now though!  I had sin in me I couldn’t scrub it off quick enough for so long, so when I sat in that church and everyone around me was saying all these things that sounded like sound bites, I wanted to chuck them back in their faces.  But in each bite, was a hard truth.  It’s not my version of truth, it’s not that guy right there in corner version of truth.  It was simple, it was easy. It was truth.  But I didn’t like it at first, but I craved it! Odd huh?

When you sin at first, you crave it.  I mean, you CRAVE it!  Then, sin starts its dirty work and you start to really dislike it; however, you keep doing it, cause you have the memory of craving it.  And that was the thing that held me.  What strange, self depraved creatures we can be.

I have atheist friends, I have agnostic friends, I have friends in low places and friends in high places. I have friends that hate my faith, I have friends that H.A.T.E. my Christ.  I have friends that tell me I hate because I love my Christ.  But it's all noise to me, and I literally hear none of it. I can’t solve their lack of faith, it's not my job and I’m not here to cure them. You are. I’m here to work on my faith, be the light and love You asked me to be and if You happen to use me somewhere to shine down on someone, it’s simply a humble privilege.  Nothing I can remotely stake my grubby claws into and claim, “THIS IS MINE, I DID THIS!”  I know what I am not, and I am no savior.

I was saved 5 years ago, maybe it was 6...my math, its not so hot the older I get. I was a hot mess; behaving foolishly and probably eventually killing my marriage.  Would you know it? I had a decent job, I had a decent enough house, I drove a decent enough car and I had a decent enough husband; oh, and I had pets.  Things looked swell.  But ah, that’s the problem isn’t it?  I was good at being sin.  I was clever.  I was justifying my sin like the Queen of Hearts.  I painted my deck pretty, stacked it nicely to portray the image I wanted. I was good at being me.  I was funny, I was loud, I was brash, I was smooth, I could charm and smile.  I was good at sin.

But saying you're good at sin is like saying you’re really good at suicide.  I didn’t want to be good at going to hell.  I wanted off.  I wanted done. I wanted out.

I got invited to a church, I was hung over as...well, I was hung over. I heard him talk. I remember something about being molded. I remember hearing something about God reshaping me, turning me in the fires to make me refined.  It made no sense, but there was a small part of me that was willing to hear more.  And I believe deep inside of me, there was hope- and it was taking control, ready to grow.

I recited a prayer with my father because he asked me to.  So I did. So that took care of my salvation.  I thought.  We did some studies together, all of us, as a family.  I started to going to church. I kept a journal of everything! Oh, and not the sweet, ‘Oh, what he just said really hit home’. Nope, I kept a journal of doubts, questions and disbelief. Yep. And I kept going to church, it was ripping me apart. Piece by piece, hated moment by hated moment (it kills me people saying they go to church “for an entertaining feel good reason”...yeah, sometimes it does feel good...but the hard stuff doesn’t feel good, but that’s when you really need to sit there and pay attention...by the way, if your church is concerned with entertaining you and making you feel good...yeah, go find a new church...).  God, You shredded me, You tore me up.  Finally bravely one night, You showed me what I truly was. Oh, I saw the hideous corpse, there I was dead. I mean a dead body, nasty sin bursting from the seems.  And I heard it in my heart, it hurt to hear it. I cried so hard that night, “This isn’t who I wanted you to be.”

I laid on my living room floor, bowed to the only God that could save my hope and make my faith be me.  I confessed it all. Every single freakin’ sin I could think of, I blurted it out. I owned it and showed it to God.  I don’t think I forgot a sin, but maybe….didn’t matter. I poured it on the ground before him, and begged his forgiveness.  I begged for Him.  And he saved me.  God handed me truth, and I clung so hard and tight and passionately. I’ll never let it go, and my journal of doubts-  I threw it in the trash!  If I have doubts, that’s OK.  I give my doubts to God, He always answers them.

But it took up to recently to actually bury the dead girl.  I cringed a lot people’s proclamations of living without regret, of the “you are worth it”, live like nobody's watching. My dead body became my ridiculous testimony of how regretless living really looks, I was so willing to hang on to infested body of sin- just to prove how unworthy I was. I lived like everyone was watching, because my dead body soon had a name. Guilt. I couldn’t shake my unworthiness, I couldn’t comprehend Your love.  Everything You did for me these last 5 or 6 years.  I felt like every time I looked in the mirror, I only saw her- Guilt. I didn’t see what God saw, Redeemed.  I’d hear people talk these silly talks of forgiving oneself, ‘just gotta forgive yourself and move on!’  Well, I’m sorry, but that’s plain stupid.  'Hey, I did all this sinning, but it's all good- I've gone ahead and forgiven myself for it'.  Some may call this closure, but I have my own name: I call it narcissistic, self righteous deception. Oh, go ahead, you go forgive yourself right straight to hell. Have fun with that. But there is an opportunity in asking for forgiveness. In being honest, about pulling out the root of yourself and finally sincerely stepping out in total faith and asking God for forgiveness.  You can call it closure I guess. I call it salvation and I’m finally calling it His grace.  It literally took me all these years.  I thought I got it, but I guess I didn’t actually “get it”.

I heard it at a concert, ha! God, you know that? You do have a sense of humor.  I was sitting there, you know. My dead body and I chillin’ at concert and the singer of Mercy Me, started to touch on this subject of his guilt and feeling of worthlessness, and then he said it, “Wasn’t Christ enough?” This God you love, you proclaim, that you don’t care one iota if the atheist laugh at you. Isn’t He enough? Wasn’t the work on the cross enough?!

OH. MY. GOD.  I got it, yes! My savior! My Christ! My God! I GOT IT.  Finally, grace.  Finally, I understood it.  I am holy, righteous and redeemed! REDEEMED!  And I didn’t even have to do something as stupid as forgive myself to close that case. Christ is enough. The cross is enough.  It took me 5 years, and I looked over at my dead corpse, Guilt, and dump her dead, useless body off at the graveyard. See ya!

Guilt, no you are not worthy.  You didn’t deserve the cross.   You were dead, sinful and righteously hell bound.  You were unworthy, but He died for you anyways.

And now...

Redeemed, yes, you are worthy! You are His. He has made you holy, righteous and REDEEMED!

I am at his loving mercy.

I am forever His.

I am forever in love.

Christ is enough.

So, heavenly Father, yes. Thank you.  Thank you. Thank you.

Come on! BRING OUT YOUR HAPPY!

If you’re my atheist friend, eye rolling me now.  That’s OK.  I’m not here to debate my faith, I never will. (No, really I won’t...I won’t even respond if you try).  Same reason, I don’t respond to your atheist rants and postings- I literally don’t care that you don’t accept my faith, but I am here to proclaim it.  And maybe someday, God will give me an opportunity to not debate my faith with you, my dear friend, but simply talk about my faith with you. I’m always willing to talk about it.