let's try this again

Me normal is insecure, fearful, depressed, worrisome, prideful, selfish, hateful, scared, doubtful, confused, secretive. Your power in me is love, boldness, courage, strength, hope, peace, kindness, gentleness, patience, newness, clear, open, warm.

I desire You more than anything. Knowing You is the best thing that could ever have happened. Lord give me a fierce desire to seek you. to find you. Lord with all my heart that I may find you.

Forgive me. I have sinned against You. I have done things my way before asking You. I have lived for happy/easy feelings and try to manipulate circumstances so that I can control my emotions based on what happens.

Peace is not an absence of chaos in my life, but divine courage in the midst of chaos…something like that. I read that on a card and it was helpful...
Lord I want to be prepared for what you have for me. You really have taught me so much this semester.

You’ve taught me to be a learner…with all these different jobs you’ve taught me not to fear failure, but to look at how much there is to learn.

You’ve taught me when entering into others’ pain to not focus on where they’ve been or the pain of the now, but the hope of change in their futures. To hold on to the good. Humans are resilient creatures. To see the violence or acting out as strength. These girls still have survival in them. They’re going to fight and be stronger for it.

To not isolate. Even in the pain to go to the body for help. Not expecting to be 100% understood, but to be prayed for. To confess sin for healing.

The transformation of how I've always seen the gospel. To see the urgency of speaking in word and then to live the gospel by entering into others’ lives and offering grace. Then to see my need to be redeemed. To see the darkness of my heart and my complete dependency on God’s character of mercy. How much I’ve been changed by the truth that you forget my sin. That I am in Christ. That when You see me, You see Your Son. You are beaming at me ALWAYS. There is nothing I can do that will separate me from Your love. There is no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus. Feelings of guilt or fear is completely in opposition to perfect love.And that’s what You are—perfect love. THANK YOU.

For such a long time I’ve tried to appease you. I’ve tried to pay you back all that you’ve given me. There is just no way. I tried so hard..so much that I’d run myself into the ground..stuck in my failure and disappointment. Unable to wake up in the mornings because I couldn’t do enough for You. Constantly fighting depression and terrified of my Abba Father..that You would bless me or be merciful and that would add up in my grace loans of more that I have to pay back. Not being able to just accept that I was accepted. the nicer people were to me the more I had to eventually give back and I had nothing to give. So I was in constant anxiety and stress.

I never understood grace. I thought i did things right most of the time. the things that were gifts given to me by You for Your glory I thought were produced by me for me.

So you took them away.

I couldn’t laugh, I couldn’t be with people, I couldn’t lead, I couldn’t plan, I couldn’t rest, I couldn’t feel, I couldn’t talk,. All joy was gone. my personality, my reputation, my friends, my leadership, my joy. You took them and left me naked. It felt like I was in the wilderness forever. No one could rescue me.
But then You spoke tenderly to me...

Hosea 2
Say to your brothers, “Ammi (my people)”, and to your sisters, “Ruhamah” (she has obtained compassion)

“Contend with your mother, contend, For she is not my wife and I am not her husband; And let her put away her harlotry harlotry from her face and her adultery from between her breasts, Or I will strip her naked and expose her as on the day when she was born. I will also make her like a wilderness, Make her like desert land and slay her with thirst.
“Also, I will have no compassion on her children, Because they are children of harlotry. For their mother has played the harlot; She who conceived them has acted shamefully. For she said, ‘I will go after my lovers, Who give me my bread and my water, My wool and my flax, my oil and my drink.’

Therefore, behold, I will hedge up her way with thorns, And I will build a wall against her so that she cannot find her paths. She will pursue her lovers, but she will not overtake them; And she will seek them, but will not find them. Then she will say, ‘I will go back to my first husband, For it was better for me then than now!’

“For she does not know that it was I who gave her the grain, the new wine and the oil, And lavished on her silver and gold, Which they used for Baal. “Therefore, I will take back My grain at harvest time and My new wine in its season. I will also take away My wool and My flax Given to cover her nakedness.

“And then I will uncover her lewdness In the sight of her lovers, And no one will rescue her out of My hand. I will also put an end to all her gaiety, Her feasts, her new moons, her Sabbaths And all her festal assemblies. I will destroy her vines and fig trees, Of which she said, ‘These are my wages Which my lovers have given me.’ And I will make them a forest, and the beasts of the field will devour them.

I will punish her for the days of the Baals when she used to offer sacrifices to them and Adorn herself with her earrings and jewelry, And follow her lovers, so that she forgot Me,” declares the Lord.

Therefore, behold, I will allure her, Bring her into the wilderness and speak kindly to her. Then I will give her her vineyards from there, And the valley of Achor as a door of hope. And she will sing there as in the days of her youth, As in the day when she came up from the land of Egypt. “It will come about in that day,” declares the Lord, “That you will call Me Ishi (my husband) and will no longer call Me Baali (my master). For I will remove the names of the Baals from her mouth, So that they will be mentioned by their names no more.

“In that day I will also make a covenant for them with the beasts of the field, the birds of the sky and the creeping things of the ground. And I will abolish the bow, the sword and war from the land, And will make them lie down in safety. I will betroth you to Me forever; Yes, I will betroth you to Me in righteousness and in justice, in lovingkindness and in compassion, And I will betroth you to Me in faithfulness. Then you will know the Lord.

“It will come about in that day that I will respond,” declares the Lord. “I will respond to the heavens, and they will respond to the earth, And the earth will respond to the grain, the new wine and to the oil, And they will respond to Jezreel. “I will sow her to Myself in the land. I will also have compassion on her who had not obtained compassion, And I will say to those who were not My people, ‘You are My people!’ and they will say, ‘You are my God!’

I am a part of this Story. I am one character of billions that God is betrothing to himself. Forever I am his. I am in his righteousness. I am in his justice. in his lovingkindness. in his compassion. in his faithfulness. One day all the earth will know the Lord. He will say ‘You are My people!’ and we will say ‘You are my GOD!’