Embracing Who I Am - a Beautiful Mess

After three incredible weeks, really after being a part of an amazing worship time at my Church last Saturday, I finally hit the peak of what I could give physically and a bit emotionally. I knew the tiredness would come, I knew I would find myself at a point of weakness, and I had been preparing for it for three weeks. What I didn't expect was to find myself stumbling and messing up in areas I don't normally mess up in.

First there was the big mistake in the nursery Sunday morning. I knew better. Parents were a bit mad at me. Parents are never mad at me. Eliana wanted to go run and hide in a corner. I've worked in the nursery since I was in fourth grade and I have never felt the weight of that responsibility until I made this mistake. It was a stupid stupid mistake but my tiredness and impatience and I guess my sense of pride that I "knew" what I was doing since I am the veteran of the nursery even though I'm like 14 years younger than everyone else who works in it. The same old patterns of self-condemnation and self-rejection reared it's ugly head and in the midst of the tiredness I found myself falling back into a few old habits.

And then the temptation came, the sin snuck in, and the shame began to fortify itself again in my life. What in the world, why am I regressing?!

My accountability partners and I had a little chat about this, and we're working on formulating a game plan/battle strategy. And most of that plan includes me embracing the reality, again, of my own humanness, fallibility, faults, and mistakes.

Have you ever stood in front of a mirror and gazed at your reflection in all of its fullness. Looking beyond the physical appearance and gazing deeply at who you are, who you really are? Do you like what you see? Have you stared at the one thing you are deeply ashamed about and instead of berating yourself you find yourself thanking God that this place of shame is equally as beautiful and equally as precious as your most loved part about you? Have you found yourself thanking God for all the areas of brokenness because you know it's in those places of brokenness and shame that God's love shines the brightest and is shown to you in the biggest and most profound way?

For example: Many of you who know me know that I desperately need to lose weight. The doctor says I'm morbidly obese. I hate that word. In order to be healthy I need to lose more than half of my current weight. The other day I tried looking at myself in the mirror and in an effort of embracing who I really am I found myself thanking God for all the things I like about my appearance and thanking God that the areas my body is broken in are because I tried to fill their needs and manage them with things that temporarily satisfy instead of inviting God into these areas of brokenness. So I invite God into these places of brokenness and I begin to see the beauty of the flaws, the failures, the mess. I realized that even in the physical part of me God has given me a desire and longing for intimacy and connection with Him, and I loved seeing that the depths of my physical brokenness speak of depths of this desire and longing for God. So I invite God into my physical brokenness and ask the Holy Spirit to begin to work in my life in this area. Currently, I'm down 19 pounds!

Today, instead of shaming yourself for all the ways you should have done things differently or for all the little imperfections or things you don't like about you, could you embrace them? Could you see beyond the surface to see that the depths of brokenness speak of the depths of longing and desire for intimacy and connection with God? Could you invite Him into those shameful and broken places of your lives, thanking Him for the profound way you were made - mess and all - and believe that God could love you, all of you? Could you turn and face God's holiness as broken and as sinful as you are and let Him embrace you fully? Could you begin to cherish and love that side of you that you don't like, that you want to keep hidden, because God loves that side too? Could you begin to challenge yourself to stop "shoulding on yourself" as my counselor would say and begin to thank God that you are flawed and that you need Him? Because let me tell you, when you realize the depth of your need for God you will find that God is capable and willing to meet that need and beyond. Yes, it is a beautiful mess :)