Striving for Security

Have you ever sat down and suddenly felt a bombardment of everything? All of a sudden, everything you've been doing wrong crowds your mind and you can't escape it. The replays that you have of past days are not of memories of laughs, but instead of stupid things you've said, dumb things you've done, people you've hurt, and areas where you could've improved. And you say to yourself in that moment that you're going to become a better person. You're going to do your best to not say stupid things, do dumb stuff, hurt anyone else, or fail. You say to yourself that it's healthy that you want to improve, to make yourself a better person...always striving, never resting. Have you ever felt like such a failure that nothing anyone says or does will change that idea, that lie that is SO implanted in your head?

Cause that's me right now, as I type this I hold back tears (mainly because I'm in a public place and well that would be awkward). It's taking all that I am to say to myself it's a lie: a lie that I can make myself perfect, that I can walk my Christian life on my own. It's taking all that I am to accept that i'm not a failure in God's eyes, that i'm not a screw up to Him. It's taking all that I am to accept that no matter how much I work I will never be what I want to be, that no matter how many promises I make to myself I will break them and fall again. That no matter how many resolutions to lose weight, study harder, become funnier, or build stronger walls, I make, I will always fall short of them. I have to struggle so much to understand that God wants me to come to Him broken so that HE can be the one to fill me. He doesn't want me to try to fill myself, fix myself, or better myself, because He knows how imperfect I am and how incapable I am of doing that. I cannot make myself whole. I cannot make myself feel secure by working harder. I cannot earn salvation by striving to be perfect.

"Father, take away the lies that grab onto us with such a firm grip that we feel it will kill us to pry it off. Give us strength to accept our weakness and our imperfection. Hold our hands as we accept our smallness and our failure. And let us see the grace You extend to us; let us feel the Love that You give us and the protection You offer us. Don't let us walk this alone. In Your Name. Amen. "