Interesting doesn't even begin to describe my life in the last year and I can safely say that I have no idea what the heck I'm doing with my life.
I have had almost 20 years of education and yet, I find myself struggling to find a job and feeling more and more discouraged with each day. I feel like I'm losing all the skills I've picked up along with my grad degree and am battling the feeling of failure that overwhelms me when I think of my non-existent career.
I have also reached a new decade in life and all around me, friends are not only getting married but starting to have babies in droves. I actively avoid the questions of having a significant other that my relatives unfailingly pose to me and have to pretend that it's all within my plan when I definitely have no control over whether I'll ever get to be a wife or a mother.
And ministry has been kicking me in the butt. Sometimes I find that I am serving without a joyful attitude and with an ungrateful heart. I have complaints about how people are not stepping up and even when they do, they somehow mess things up. I don't know how to allow the Holy Spirit to dictate the direction of my ministry.
But isn't it funny how all of these thoughts are based on how I feel and what I am able to accomplish by my own hands? Whether those feelings are frustration, discouragement or inadequacy, it doesn't matter, my feelings are what the focus is on. And it also doesn't matter if I am actively or not actively changing my life, I act as if I am my own god and success depends on my own strength.
And yet, my God loves me. He. Loves. Me.
A wretched sinner who has nothing to show after 15 years of having the Gospel come into her life. A sinner who deserves not the roof over her head, the food on her table nor the bed she sleeps on. A sinner who certainly does not deserve to have the family she's been given, whether by blood or by Christ's blood. And a sinner who sits, as she types this, with tears in her eyes as she once again is reminded of the immeasurable Grace shown to her daily all because the God of this universe loves her.
"For me, grace is never more amazing than when I'm looking intensely at the cross, and I believe the same will be true for every child of God. There's nothing more overpowering and captivating to the soul than to climb Calvary's mountain with childlike attentiveness and wonder, with all the distractions and wrong assumptions cleared away.....Our God is good, He is gracious, He is kind and He's eager to glorify His son and edify His people...So I proceed, full of faith in Him...and confident that by the Holy Spirit's prompting, you'll join me in tears and in unspeakably joyful gratitude as we climb up Calvary together and gain a deeper understanding of what really happened there, and the staggering reasons behind it..."
C.J. Mahaney
I can only hope and pray, CJ, that this happens as often as it should.
Soli Deo gloria
