A Change of Pace

Lately, my mind and heart have been really focused on sin. Not on actually sinning (which I sadly still do), but ruminating over past sins. And by ruminating, I mean obsessing. I am not a very good forgiver (more on this later), so it figuratively boggles my mind trying to comprehend the idea of an all forgiving God. I know what God tells me in the Bible, and I believe every period, comma, and phrase to be true, but the mere concept seems so crazy to me! In the world in which I live, it does not make sense to have a God that is constantly loving and constantly forgiving me, an undeserving sinner. I often feel bogged down by my sin and trying to make amends and changes. I focus constantly on my pet sins, the sins that I keep feeding and nurturing, even though they are sucking the light out of me. 

I'm trying to focus my eyes more on the Cross, though, and less on the sin.Yes, I sin. Yes, I need to work as hard as I can to remove sin from my life. But the fact of the matter is this: the war has already been won. My heart is sealed in the hands of God and there's basically much nothing that I can do to screw that up. Crazy, right? My God loves me so much that He sent His one and only Son for me, so that regardless of my sins, I can hang out with Him for all of eternity. THAT is where I want my focus to be. On the Good News. The Best News. I am often stunned by the goodness of God. And by goodness, I mean great, awesome, incredible, incomprehensible, utter amazingness of God.

The LORD your God is with you, the Mighty Warrior who saves. He will take great delight in you; in his love he will no longer rebuke you, but will rejoice over you with singing.

 For real, God is awesome. I just can't get over it! So I'm going to lay my heart down at the foot of the cross, sin and all, and give my whole life to my main man Jesus. It's only through Him that I have anything to offer, only through Him that my sins are washed clear and my heart is as pure as His own. It is only through him that worthless is turned into worthy. On my own, I am unworthy. Just me, Molly, sitting here, I am a sinner. With Jesus, I rest in the love of God and am relieved of the burden of sin. Tonight, and every night, I will go to sleep rejoicing in the Good News and I will wake up blessed by His love.

Forgiveness

Forgiveness has been an issue for me for basically forever. Lately, it has become an even bigger issues because I have been forced to reevaluate my thoughts on forgiveness through the lens of the Bible. I'm not a forgiver. I don't do it graciously or easily. I do okay with the little things-when I accidentally hurt someone's feelings or forget to take out the trash or even when I intentionally sin against another person in minor ways (like being mean on purpose or something like that). With things like that, I actually consider myself to be pretty decent at asking for forgiveness and talking it out if needed. It's the big things that get me. The times when I have been hurt and need to forgive, and ask for forgiveness. Boy has God been working me on this one though. He's really been chipping away at me and it hurts. On the one hand I'm super grateful that God is willing to mold me and that He hasn't totally given up on me yet. On the other hand, I would please like for it to hurt less and maybe could we talk about this a few years from now? Apparently the answer to the latter hand is a resounding NO because He seems to be bringing it up every chance possible. Mostly through Laura, my Bible verses, and KLOVE (yes, I do believe that God talks to me through my radio, call my crazy if you so desire). Lately, I have really felt my heart moving towards forgiveness. I have started to comprehend more and more how utterly amazing Jesus was to give His life for me in atonement for my sins so that I may enjoy eternal life with Him. And yet, here I am, with essentially nothing to lose except my pride, and I can't extend a little forgiveness? I am so grateful that asking for and extending forgiveness has been easier to swallow the last few weeks. This is something that I have struggled with for my entire life, so that fact that God is shoving my heart in the right direction, one painful inch at a time, with slightly less resistance from me, is BIG NEWS. 

One place that I am still really struggling though, is the vulnerability. Asking for someone's forgiveness (not that I have much personal experience) means that you are opening yourself up to them. You are displaying your sin on a platter for them to analyze and they have the right to turn you down. They have to right to say "Yep, you're a sinner and you're a bad, bad person, and I refuse to forgive you." And I will still have to hold my platter of sin out in front of them and accept that they're right, I have sinned against them and that was wrong and that what I have done can't be undone and they have the right to withhold their forgiveness. More importantly, if they do forgive me, they have the right to bring it up again later and say, "Hey you, you're sinning again, cut it out-I've forgiven you once already for this..." Not that I resent someone calling me out on my sin; believe me, I often need it and I respect anyone that does it because it shows the depth of their love for me. But that doesn't make it any less painful.

 Long story short: I'm scared of asking for forgiveness and then having my every action, my every thought, my every sin and transgression picked through and analyzed for years to come. And yet I understand that asking for forgiveness comes without strings. Asking for forgiveness comes with a true understanding that I have done wrong. Asking for forgiveness means a willingness to hold my heart out to another person and ask them to look inside and see a genuine apology. Holding my heart out, stringless, to another person is a scary concept for me. I like to stay very, very safe. Trusting another person can be very, very dangerous. Plus, an equally difficult issue, I have to take into consideration that asking for another person's forgiveness means a willingness to extend equal or greater forgiveness back to them. Being willing to forgive and move on. Allowing for a clean slate. Forgiving others is something that I really don't tend do easily. I much prefer to nurture my anger and hold it close to my heart and feed it little pinched of bitterness and resentment every now and again to keep it strong.

I certainly realize that my heart, in terms of giving and offering forgiveness, is in pretty rough territory right now. I'm working on it. I'm not going to lie and say that it's been easy. And I'm not going to pretend that I'm 100% willing to make a change right now. I understand that I am wrong, and that I have so much room to grow in this area. And really, I'm trying. I'm trying to forgive. I'm praying for God to help me let go of my anger and bitterness and resentment. I'm praying for God to help me eradicate my pride so that I may ask for forgiveness without any strings and a genuinely contrite heart. It's not easy, and I'm not convinced that it'll ever be easy for me. But hey, practice makes perfect, right?

Emotional Mess

I have been a total and complete emotional mess lately. I'm not sure what brought it on: finals stress, starting back at the pool, who knows. I'm hoping that writing it out will help me sort everything into neat little categories so that I can proceed with my organized little life.

Lately, the main source of emotional upheaval has been my friendship with Laura (Laura, we haven't talked about this much--sorry about that). Laura is the single most important individual in my life. She's the girl that doesn't bullshit around my feelings-she tells me what I need to hear whether it be about boys, my heart, my sin, or my life in general. I respect that so much in her. I know that she won't lie to me or try to tell me what she thinks I want to hear (unless it's about my outfit or something trivial). The last few weeks, though, I have been absolutely paranoid about losing her. For real, it's like I'm going through reverse separation anxiety. I say reverse because I have been so incredibly happy to be spending more time than usual over there the last couple of weeks. Anywho, here's what's happened:

Incident number one: This was the whopper (and we have talked about it!). So I'm sitting in a very public place hanging out with the Whitney-girl, and we get to talking about my blog. I told Whitney that I was nervous because I was going straight from our lunch out to see Laura, and I knew that Laura wanted to discuss the blog (bolded because it felt like a really big deal before we talked about it). For some reason, while talking about it, I managed to convince myself that Laura was going to be really upset about my opinions and thoughts and that that would be enough to potentially sever our relationship. I opened my mind, for like one second, to the idea that Laura could possibly not be in my life anymore and I melted. I completely broke down. Seriously, I cannot even describe the pain- it felt like my heart was being crushed like an ant on the sidewalk. I started totally sobbing in the middle of this restaurant and was really super upset. Fortunately, Laura and I were able to talk about incident number one later that night and I was reassured that that girl's not going anywhere!

Incident number two: Incident number two happened a little while later. I'd been hanging out at her house and I was having a super awesome time and then the paranoia set in again. I convinced myself that I was totally in her way and was being really obnoxious. I started questioning everything that I was doing and saying, totally certain that I was driving them up the wall. I think that the idea that people can tolerate my presence for solid stretches of time without my driving them crazy still surprises me. I finally had to leave because I was so sure that they were done with me and I was becoming so anxious. On the drive home, I realized that I was being a crazy girl again because Laura and I have talked about this in the past, and I trust that she will tell me when I am not being helpful or when I have overextended my welcome.

Incident number three: Incident number three happened while I was driving home for her house. For real, I had just left her house. I can't even describe how mad it makes me that I've let my emotions get so out of control that I freak out less than five minutes after leaving. This time, I was letting my mind wander and thinking about some other things and I started thinking about how important Laura is to me and how grateful I am that she challenges me so much as a believer. I then said in my head "I wouldn't stop being friends with Laura for anything." And then it occurred to me that that statement isn't necessarily true: if God were to ask me to end my relationship with Laura, I would do it. It would be the most painful thing in my life up to this point, but I would do it. Which then got me to thinking: oh my goodness, am I allowing Laura to become and idol in my life and is God going to ask me to leave our relationship? Which then made me cry. Sitting here now, I'm still trying to sort this one out. I honestly don't think that I have turned Laura into an idol. I think that only recently have I been able to truly comprehend how much she and her family means to me and I think that I am terrified of true, deep emotions. They're scary. I think that that fear is the reason that I start sobbing every time I start to grasp the depth and awesomeness of God's love for me. Such an open abyss of love and forgiveness and grace is so incomprehensible and pure that anytime my eyes are opened to even a sliver of it, I am so stunned that I start the waterworks. Lately, I have really felt God opening up my heart in more and more ways. I have realized that I am becoming more aware of the world, and feeling pain belonging to others. I am opening up my heart to God more and more, passing it over more easily and willingly every day. There are still roadblocks and difficulties, obviously, but, if it were physically possible, I would believe that my heart feels a little bit bigger in my chest (am I allowed to talk about myself this way? I feel like I'm too close to the situation to compliment myself...too late). I think that that's what's happening with my relationship with Laura. I think that my heart is growing, and as it does, I become scared. Scared of loss. Scared of pain. Scared of hurt. Because as my heart is growing, my love for my Sister in Christ is growing, too. I'm realizing how blessed I have been to have her in my life for the past fifteen or so years. I am realizing how amazing Christ has been to share her with me and to provide me with a friend that is willing to love me through the good, the bad, and the teenage years (which would be the really, really bad!). Opening up these doors of awareness, though, heightens my fears that I am going to do something wrong that is going to cause her to leave. What can I say? I'm a worrier to the extreme.

I've been praying about this a lot lately. Enough that it made it's way into a permanent spot on my prayer list. I've been praying about my relationship with Laura- that I can continue to be helpful to her and her family. But I've been praying even more for God to relieve me of this anxiety and fear of the future and general fear of emotions. I trust God, I genuinely do, and I wholly trust that He has an amazing plan for me that I cannot even comprehend. I'm so frustrated with this anxiety because I know that it has no place; for one) Laura has assured me that our friendship is totally solid. For two) God has an amazing plan for me, whether I worry over it or not. And yes, there's bound to be pain involved along the way, and loss, and heartache, but He's got my heart and it's safely cocooned in His palms. So I'll close with my comfort verse:

For I am convinced that neither life nor death, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

And I will bask in the comfort of God and rejoice in His love for me. Prayers much appreciated to alleviate my craziness.

Times Like Today

Sometimes, the todays wear me down. You know what I'm talking about: the days that are average. The days that I am bogged down with work and homework. The days that I get a thousand emails in a day because someone needs something at the pool, my professor needs another copy of my paper, and my coworker wants to know if I can cover a shift. The days when my to do list fills up my whole arm, takes over my brain, and completely consumes me. I have a hard time seeing past those days. And those days are today. They're my everyday. Like today. Today I was having a day. It's pretty incredible how much paperwork/email/phone calls required to keep a pool fully operational from 300 miles away. Add in the final projects and less than a handful of days until the start of finals, and you get one stressed out Molly.

And yet, it's days like this that make me happiest to be a Christian. Days when the wind makes me smile because I know that it's God distracting me from my stress. I find funny things on the internet and they make me happy. I read my daily Bible verse and it makes my heart smile. Yeah, these are good days. Sometimes God just has to nudge me a bit to remind me.

She is clothed in strength and dignity, and she laughs without fear of the future. 
-Proverbs 31: 25