Skip to main content

Teach Me

I like leaving my radio on when I’m not home. Coming home to singing just makes me smile. The right song at the right time can change a whole day.

That happened today.

I came home because I was so tired of school. Just being there was draining me. Seeing the same people I see every Tuesday – I just wanted to run and hide away.

I ran home.

As I walked into my room Matthew West was pleading,
“Show me how to love the unlovable
Show me how to reach the unreachable
Help me now to do the impossible”

My head tilted and I just stared at the numbers on my radio thinking they would help clear out my thoughts, explain the mess in my brain.

I am unlovable.

Maybe not to everyone, but to someone.

There are lots of people that I have to pray to love well, to have patience for, ask forgiveness for bad thoughts. I hadn’t really considered that that person is me to someone else.

Before repentance, that was me to God.

All He could see where my imperfections. My lack of righteousness and holiness. My sin.

Then Jesus blotted that all away. His perfection covers my lacking. His suffering was extended to me as joy.

Jesus made me loveable.

A bit of a shock to articulate the extent of my selfishness.

I complain about so much in others while in the same moment justify myself. Why haven’t I learned that my justification is from heaven not from me?

Why is it such a struggle to selflessly give my love to those around me? Can’t I see how much worse I was than they are now?

I’m longing for perfection in a broken world.

Sometimes I forget how close it really is. A few weeks ago my roommates and I were talking and I gave them one of my sermonettes. It was from 1 Corinthians 13 when Paul writes about now seeing through the glass dimly, but soon all will be seen in full. I told them how sometimes in our dirty glass God takes His hand and wipes out a streak and grace shines through so brightly. Reminders of who He is and of our first love.

That’s what this song was to me today; a light shone through, dirt washed away. Grace made clear.


Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

First in Awhile

The past year or so I have been working with the youth group at the church I grew up in. Such an odd thing to wrap my mind around. The group that in so many ways formed who I am today is something I still get to be there for. Though now I'm the responsible one. The mature one. As our interim pastor says, "the one with all the answers." (He JOKES anyway). I show up and help lead where I can. Because it's what is needed. And it's a calling I feel I have on my life. To work with young people, to help teach. The irony is that my journey lately has taken me through a struggle with discipline. Becoming the person I need to be and doing the actions to get me there. I watch my husband and it seems so easy for him while for me often it's a battle of   but I don't want to .  And I have to admit comparisons have only intensified that feeling. It's so easy to sit back and deny what I ought to do in favor of what's right in front of me.  But I
Post a Comment
Read more

I am Redeemed

You set me free. I don’t have to be, That old man inside of me. I’m not who I used to be. Thank God, I’m redeemed. I’ve loved this song since it was released. The simple truth I so often forget. I am redeemed. It’s basic. Essentially basic. But why can’t I remember? So often I find myself slipping into my version of “that old man.” I listened to a sermon awhile ago and the pastor talked about how everyone goes through times of desert. Then he started talking to me. Just make sure you aren’t keeping yourself in the desert any longer than you have to. Longer than you have to. The phrase played in my mind like tacky wordart. Big, bright letters swirling into sentences. Into meaning. Into my life. I don’t have to be like that. I don’t have to do that or hide there. I am redeemed . Bought back. Made better. Set free. Don’t keep yourself in that desert any longer than you have to be there. There is a special kind of grace in this remembering. I
Post a Comment
Read more

Tired of Losing...

We’re not really born with a fair shake, you know. We start out this life in teeny tiny little bodies that are completely defenseless then we grow into children who do not understand that cars whizzing by on the street are dangerous. Then onto teenagers fueled by junk food and raw emotion often ill-controlled. The twenty-something’s who think life is in the palm of their hands and their plans are the beautiful, world changing kind. Into our thirties we slow down a little bit, maybe have a family, maybe altered dreams completely, but the beauty is still there if a bit less dim. The forties and fifties, some say they’re the new twenties packed with whole new dreams about this new, wiser portion of life – the kids are growing up and that means more grown up time. Again. The sixties: grandbabies crying and the silver hair let’s opinions be heard with some respect. Seventy, eighty, ninety. The respect seems to dwindle as Let the journey rage on does ability. Dreams change to regr
Post a Comment
Read more