I accepted Jesus as my Lord and Savior the summer before my freshman year of high school. We were on a youth trip and I remember vividly sitting down with my youth pastor and telling him that I knew some stuff about Jesus but I didn't know Him like other people on that trip seemed to know him. I'm pretty sure I cried
High school wasn't easy: I feel like looking back there was always something. Be it typical teenage stuff or the more looming medical issues I faced as time went on; I pinky promise I will never be one of those girls that says at her 20th reunion "High School was the best 4 years of my life!"
Today I stumbled upon my old journals I kept in high school. They were prayers I had written down to God mostly. 9th grade through 11th grade were funny to read. I questioned a lot of stuff but I always wrote out, with confidence, that I knew God was going to take care of me and use every trial I faced for something great. I wrote about how my youth group was growing, how I started a middle school girls bible study my junior year, about the youth trips and the goofy things that happened, and about how much I was completely head over heels in love with Jesus. And even though it was hard sometimes, I wrote down everywhere in all of these journals that I loved and adored every single thing about my Savior.
Then I found my journal from 12th grade. It was short. Maybe 15-20 entries at most. It started off with the similar entry about going to Florida once again for yet another Destin youth trip, but it didn't end with me thanking God or writing about anything positive at all actually.
"God, I'm tired. I don't know what to do with you anymore. Sorry, I'm just being honest. I'm tired of having to be reliable and good all the time. I'm tired of staring at a blank page and not knowing what to say. I'm tired of waiting for you to work everything out for my good. And I'm not even excited about this trip. I just want to figure all of this out this week. I still love you, but I don't know what to do right now."
Throughout the course of that week I wrote similar entries over and over again. "God what am I doing here?" "What are you doing with me?" "Please help me just be nice to people." Even on my 17th birthday when my youth group threw a surprise party for me in our conference room at the beach, while I was excited and wrote about every detail of how sweet and thoughtful it was for everyone to do that for me, I ended it with "Why are you so silent recently God? Aren't you hearing me?"
I wrote an entry once every month or two months after that week on the beach ended. I wrote about having a seizure, and then wrote about all the migraines that followed. I wrote about a family friend struggling with terminal cancer, I wrote about hating how much school I missed, I wrote about being lonely because no one wanted to be friends with the kid who is literally never at school, and I wrote about how church was the only place I felt even semi-normal but even as the course of senior year unfolded it wasn't a place I liked to be. (That last point is a big deal because at many different points in my freshman and sophomore year of high school I wrote that my favorite place on earth would be anywhere my church family was. To say that I was tired of being there breaks my heart a little bit.)
I didn't stop being a christian. I still prayed for answers, I still went to church, I still would ask people for advice, and I still would read my bible at night in hopes that something encouraging would jump out of the pages.
I have now almost completed my second year of college. I've loved college! It's crazy busy all the time but with the medical issues sorted out I finally have time for being involved in activities on campus, being more involved in my church as a whole, working a job, hanging out with friends, etc. I love Jesus. I love him and talk to him and talk about him when I can, but after reading those journals today I would openly admit that I haven't been in love with Him in a long time.
I haven't been in love with Jesus in a long time.
Do you understand what I'm saying? I'm not saying that I don't love Jesus. I'm saying that it's been a while since I've read my bible because I wanted to soak up everything He ever wanted me to know. I'm saying it's been a while since I've sang or heard a song and cried because I was so moved by the thought of having the privilege to worship my Heavenly Father. I'm saying that it's been a while since I've written out a prayer, or even said one out loud, that had me listing all the things I'm overwhelmingly thankful for and reasons I absolutely adore Jesus. Do you get it? Can you relate to what I'm saying at all, or have I crossed into the rambling lunatic stage? I love going to church. I love learning about the Bible. I love hanging out with my friends and being around my church family. But I can't tell you the last time I was in love with Christ.
Why not? Why haven't I been in love with Jesus? Why did I become numb to what the gospel was all about and why did it make me into this cynical, bitter person that I can more often than not be?
Life got real. Life got hard. Life got messy. And I started to get beat up and worn out. I got over it, but I was bitter because of it. So I would try to counteract my bitterness with perfectionism to prove to everyone that I was fine and not bitter at all. I became mean on my insides, so I would work super super hard to make sure my actions and all the things on the outside didn't show that. Because nobody likes a mean, messy, bitter person. Eventually, I just grew numb. I did what I had to do every day to make it look like I had it all together. If I acted the right way then maybe my passion for Jesus would come back. If I did the right things and said the right things maybe it would be easier for me to fall in love again. I didn't. And I stopped trying up until recently.
Over the last week or so my prayers have been heartfelt, fervent pleas for God to reveal Himself to me and I feel like He has. He also reminded me of what child-like faith really is. Between the ages of 17 and 21 you start making the transition to adulthood. Adulthood is this scary place where you pay bills, get in fights with other grown ups, watch your friends get married, mourn with your friends over miscarriages, watch people get completely wasted over drugs and alcohol, get a job and plan for your future career, watch the news, read nonfiction for fun, and eat Brussels Sprouts because somehow your taste buds have miraculously changed. During this crazy transition to this scary new chapter in life, it's so much easier to doubt and question everything you've ever known. It was easier for me to believe and trust in God as a child because I didn't have any giant decisions to make. I didn't have any reason to doubt Him. I didn't have any reason to question the reality of the gospel. I just purely, wholeheartedly, believed. And that belief grew into a love and adoration until I suddenly was faced with trials to make me ask God what He was doing.
So what do I do? I just admitted to you, whoever you are, that I am a secret cynical perfectionist who has fallen out of love with the One who breathed life into my existence. That's rough.
Preach the gospel to yourself.
I can't help but hear the voice in my head of a pastor who used to say in his sunday school lessons and sermons all the time: Preach the gospel to yourself.
I'll tell other people that there's a perfect God who loves every detail about them...but I never tell myself that the same God I'm talking about loves me just as much.
I haven't believed in a really long time that the same God I teach about in bible studies that I've lead before, or the same God I sing praises to on Sunday mornings, or the same God who gives grace so abundantly to everyone in the congregation on Sunday mornings is the same God who loves every part of me and knows everything about me. Do you get what I'm saying?
I was talking about this entire situation with someone recently. He told me that I had forgotten, or maybe just never really believed, that Jesus made me righteous. I am perfect in the eyes of my Father in Heaven. Not because of anything I do, try to do, aspire to do, want to do, wish to do, pretend to do, or do at all. There isn't anything I can do that will make God love me more tomorrow or in the next five minutes that will make him love me any more or any less than He does right now.
There isn't anything I can do to make Him love me any more or any less than He loves me right now.
That has to be the most freeing sentence I've ever written in my entire life.
In Christ we are free to struggle. We aren't struggling to be free.
I've had that quote written down on my mirror for a really long time, and it was just another phrase I had grown immune to. Because if I had really believed it, I wouldn't have been struggling so hard. I wouldn't have tried so hard to be this obnoxiously perfect person. I wouldn't have become so self-righteous and prideful. I wouldn't have become so cynical, bitter, and cold towards God's presence in my life. He's all around me every day, and all I can ever say is "OK God. I see you. I don't know what the heck to do with you, but I see you." What kind of a prayer is that?
I decided today to stop trying so hard. To stop running towards impossible expectations and searching for answers in all the wrong places. I struggle with accepting grace. I struggle with believing that there is no act I can do to make God love me, other than simply accepting the fact that He loves me. I struggle with comparing myself to others, insecurities, and countless other things. But I don't have to struggle to find ways to prove I'm strong enough, good enough, perfect enough, nice enough, spiritual enough, great enough, coordinated enough, happy enough, smart enough, involved enough, or funny enough to be loved by God because I can have confidence in the fact that He loves me for me. Imperfections and all.
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