An 8th grade teacher once told me that I would grow up to be a heartbreaker. He was wrong. Here I am almost 27 with no husband, no boyfriend and definitely no trail of broken hearts. Mr. Mario wasn’t the only one to be wrong. The apostle Paul was too. He called himself the worst of sinners. Sorry, dude, I think I have officially taken over that title. Somewhere in my cluttered life I have notes from a recent sermon. To prove how (not) spiritual I am, I can’t even remember the passage being expounded. What I do remember from that sermon is a taste of damnation. Our preaching elder was talking about how people try to save themselves by their works--an impossible task. Then a realization struck me quite painfully. While saying that I trusted in the work of Christ, I have been in the mindset of thinking I had to still DO SOMETHING. This has lead to much of the despair in my life. Feeling like you have to do something plus feeling like you can’t do anything equals frustration. I struggle with trust and control. But this sermon scared my eyes wide open. No matter how hard it is, my very salvation rests on me trusting in God and His provision and providence in my life. It’s so hard to balance how I feel about myself with the truths of the Bible. I feel utterly worthless and unworthy of anything good. To an extent, this is still true. I am what I am by the grace of God only. And the grace of God must not be denied! Yet it is so easy for me to give up! I bear the scars of my battle, both literally and figuratively. My skin has marks from burning myself. As awful as that sounds, the burns heal much faster than the gashes in my heart. Death, Despair, and Destruction: the unholy trinity of satan to which I have long been captive. A verse that I came across close to the same time as the awakening sermon was 2 Peter 2:22 “The dog returns to its own vomit, and the sow, after washing herself, returns to wallow in the mire”. I do this! I get myself all worked up. “ I will be more disciplined! I will be ok!” Only to return to my own stench once again. It’s a constant cycle of bathing and then jumping into the sewer. This all comes back to trusting God. Prozac helps me, but it won’t heal me. People support me, but they too stumble and fall sometimes. Only God can once and for all rescue me from the putrescence of self. I know the struggle isn’t over and will likely only get harder but…
“Grace has brought me safe thus far and grace will lead me home”.
