Give me Jesus

For the past year I feel as though I have been stuck in a rut...a very deep, dark, ugly rut. I've felt defeated before I even began to fight my battles. I've worked hard to make good grades and to be the perfect young life leader. I've felt sorry for myself about being single, about having so few friends my age, about hating my job. I've been scared out of my mind about graduating in a year and starting my life in general.

And after all this time of wallowing in self-pity, I've found that Jesus is still here.

Despite my own short-comings and fears, God has shown me so much about his enduring, faithful, redeeming love. He has loved me through my friends at Discipleship Focus over the summer and since. He has loved me through my family, most of all my sister whom I have grown closer to all the while. He has loved me through Andy and Olivia Ogle, (two people I highly respect and love); he's loved me through my young life girls at the most unexpected moments. He's loved me through my best friend Sam, who has patiently stuck by me. And best of all, he has loved me through strangers, like the lady I met in Nashville 3 days ago. She hugged me and told me with tears and her eyes she was so thankful we were there restoring her home for her after the flood completely destroyed it a year ago.

I look back over the past year and realize how much I don't deserve these people in my life. I realize how God has used these people to put me in my place, to hold me accountable, to fall on my knees and give him thanks, to cry out my past hurts, to vent about my fears and things I am ashamed of, to laugh with, to sing and dance with, to hug, and to talk about Jesus in the realest and rawest ways possible.

I am a selfish, stubborn, shameful mess. Yet He loves me still...and more and more it seems as time goes by. Oh how I don't deserve the blessings he has lavished upon me, and how ungrateful I have been in receiving them!

With the opening of this new year, something has sparked within me. I don't know if it is because of the service project I went on the past 3 days or the new devotion topic of restoration or just the fact that I've wallowed so deeply into my own self-pity that I officially can wallow no deeper, but I am discovering something new...something hopeful in all of this. It is my great epiphany, if you will. By allowing myself to fear, to wallow, to hurt, to lick my wounds, to push people away from me, I am being perhaps the most selfish I can possibly be. I am choosing, in essence, myself over everyone else, ESPECIALLY Jesus. I'm sick of this.

I'm currently in the slow process of chewing on the book The Signature of Jesus by Brennan Manning. It's all about taking up your cross and avoiding cheap grace. It is so hard to read because I know that it is crucial that I take it to heart. In order to flourish in the gifts God has for me, I MUST deny myself and take up my cross and follow him. He is all that matters. Therefore, the answer is to cling to him and get off my rear and make an effort to let Jesus love others through me. In other words, I must give up everything to gain everything more. It's brilliance. And oh how it sucks.

But God is faithful. I had a hard but necessary conversation with a friend a few months ago who asked me to describe my ideal life. I told him I would make straight As. I would live on my own. I would have lots of girlfriends my age. I would be a very devoted and loyal young life leader. I would wake up every morning and give one hour of my time to a devotion. After jotting these things down while I said them, he then wrote one single word that has haunted me ever since: perfection.

I don't want to be perfect anymore. It's irrational. It's exhausting. It's depressing. Just give me Jesus.