When Mercy is Weak

            I want to be perfect.

            I know that technically I shouldn’t. I should know that God’s grace has covered me and it’s okay to fail. But it isn’t okay for me to fail. I’m not okay with it.

Over the past few weeks I’ve realized how deeply this desire for perfection is within me, and how desperately I strive for it on a daily, moment by moment basis.

To be completely honest, I have written a post about this revelation, but the truth of my own motivations was too painful for me to share with the world.

Not yet.

Maybe one day.

But not now.

You see, I’ve been shocked at my own distrust in God’s grace. I’ve been humbled by the importance of other people’s opinions. I’ve been ashamed of the desperation in my heart when I feel myself beginning to make a mistake.

I’m not perfect.

And that kills me.

And now for a story, because as I have been wrestling with myself, God has been orchestrating a symphony of His grace.

This weekend, I was walking up to my room when I passed a girl I know. We do not know one another well. I asked her how she was, and she said she was “okay”.

I never believe people when they tell me they’re okay.

“Okay” is usually a lie.

Not always, but frequently enough to make me ask about it.

“Oh wow, that good, huh?” I ask with a laugh.

Her smile is painful.

She’s hurting.

“It’s been a long day.”

You could feel the heaviness in her spirit.

“Are you feeling sad? Angry? Lonely? Discouraged?...” My voice trails as she responds. “Sad, Lonely, and angry with myself.”

She is vague as we continue to talk. She’s struggling and she hates it. She wants perfection. She wants God’s judgment on her imperfection. Justice is of high value to her.

We had taken a seat on a couple of benches. No one was around, which is rare for our campus. But the day was grey and lonely; the sky was drizzling lazily. We could ignore it, but it was enough to keep others inside. It was a day for snuggling up with a mug of hot tea.

I pulled out a journal I had in my bag. I felt its weight in my hands.

Less than a week before, I’d written out my thoughts for myself when I fail; what failing makes me to be.

I hated everything on that piece of paper.

I’d shown only a couple people whom I trust deeply.

It was my little room. You see, I’m convinced that everyone has a little room within them that holds their most vulnerable naked thoughts, beliefs, and struggles. Most of us aren’t brave enough to go into this room, or even admit we have it. And when we do, we only let people we trust very, very deeply to peak into this room with us. It’s always a scary place, but it’s where true healing begins.

This paper is the foundation of my room. I knew that. It was the first time I’d ever really gone into my room, and I hated every moment of it. I hated that everything on this paper was a lie, but I believed it. I hated knowing that believing these things made me flawed, broken, in need of being corrected.

I’m completely okay and understanding of others needing forgiveness and grace, but it is never okay for me.

And that week, I’d realized that even believing this put me in a place where I needed grace.

I was wrong. And I had only just begun the work to correct some of these beliefs.

But there I sat. My vulnerable heart, bound in black stitching, heavy in my hand, and her vulnerable heart beside me, needing some proof that I could be trusted. She needed proof that I meant it when I said I could not judge her. She needed a stepping place to believe that her struggling would not make me waver.

I opened the journal to the page.

I breathed in.

Pride died.

And I handed it to her, saying simply, “this is what I have to fight against when I fail.”

The tears that came down her face proved that she, too, understood these words. Her room had some of the same dark shelves. She’d read my vulnerability, and she’d seen places it matched her own. We were not the same, but human nature is human nature, and all she read was brokenness.  

This awful piece of paper became a bridge, and she reluctantly but beautifully cracked open the door to her inner room.

She finished by asking with great earnest, “Where is God’s discipline? I get grace and mercy and they’re all happy and joyful, but what—what about discipline?”

And God taught me this lesson as I spoke it quietly to her.

“I understand”, I said, “because I would love it if a lightning bolt would shoot out of the sky and strike me when I sin sometimes. Not enough to kill me, but enough to hurt badly. That’s what I seem to deserve”

“Yeah”

“But God’s discipline now is still here. It’s so much softer, but so much more powerful.” I looked at her. She was leaned over her knees, head resting slightly on her fists that uncurled occasionally to wipe away tears.

“This is His discipline now. Letting you know that what you’re doing isn’t okay. This feeling? That’s Him telling you to stop. Because what you’re doing is wrong. But the thing is, mercy is so much bigger than discipline.

You see, the way you’re feeling now? You deserve that, and so much more. The punishment you want? You deserve it. You deserve to be punished, but the thing is, if you were punished the way you really deserve, you couldn’t handle it.

I know you know the verse ‘the wages of sin is death’, but the thing is, that is actually what you deserve. You deserve death. You couldn’t handle the punishment of your sin; it would be so severe that you would die! It is more than a lightning strike that you can walk away from. You can’t… And God knows that. He is the only One who could take that punishment and rise again. He is the only one strong enough. And that… that’s what His love did.

We make mercy sound like this wishy-washy ridiculous thing that frees us from responsibility, but it isn’t. Mercy is so much stronger than discipline, because it knows full well that you deserve that punishment. Mercy is so much stronger. There is absolutely no weakness in it.

You deserve to be beaten the way Jesus was.

You deserve to die on a cross.

It sounds so cliché, ‘it should be me on that cross’, but you know what? It freaking should be! It should be you! It should be me! We deserved to have our skin ripped apart, because frankly we choose it. Sin is a choice. We decide we will sin. We put ourselves in that place. We pick, every time, and yeah it’s sin nature, and it is who we are as human beings before Christ, but we decide when we sin.

So we deserve it.

It should’ve been me.

And it freaking should’ve been you.

And God? He knows that better than either of us.

He knows what you deserve.

And because He loves, and He chose to have mercy, it’s as if you were strapped up and the whip was about to hit your back, and He stepped in the way.

Your wrist was laying on the cross, and the nail was about to strike through it, and He pushed you away and put His own in its place.

He knew you deserved it.

But He stepped in the way.

He decided to take it so you can be free.

And He took all of the punishment. There is no more to give. He took it all, He was ripped apart, left bleeding, dying slowly and painfully, exactly as we should be.

There is no more punishment for you.

Not because, ‘Jesus died so you are o-kiz-ay’, no, it’s so serious. He gave all of Himself to die so you could live. There simply is no more punishment for you.

It’s as if you had a 30-year sentence in jail, and Jesus went and served all 30 years. There’s no more jail time left for you. It’s over. It’s done. There’s nothing left.

There just isn’t.

So what you have to do is realize that He gave everything so you can be free. So you have to stop this sinning, because He gave everything to free you from it. As a sacrifice of thanksgiving, not because living a good life makes you a “good Christian”, but because you are so humbled and amazed at His sacrifice that you will give up the evil things in your life to say ‘thank You’. You’ll give up the things that are taking up room in your heart and in your life to make more room for Him. He gave up everything for you, so you will do the same.

That’s what it is to turn from sin. As a Christian, it can be as simple and beautiful as making more room for Him out of love and thankfulness for what He has done.

And all of this energy you’re using to condemn yourself? Stop it. You need to stop sinning, but it doesn’t have to be a deep, dark, dramatic hole where you’re so focused on how much you suck that you miss how incredible God is. He knows, and He’s already taken care of it, so step into that and use this energy you’re focusing on yourself to focus on making the steps necessary to create real change in your life. Focus on loving God and using your life to proclaim that. Get to know Him. Focus on Him. That is how you can succeed, because when you see Him, you can see His love and the power of His mercy. You’re not alone.”

We talked about heart posture, and fear, and the flawed thinking that God is just waiting on us to fix ourselves.

We talked about practical ways dying to ourselves would look in her situation. We created a game plan for the next few weeks.

We talked about how beautiful God is and how safe she was and would continue to be.

We breathed laughter as we felt the weight of guilt roll off her shoulders.

Relief.

She would be okay, and she was safe, and God thought no less of her. He was there the whole times, loving her. She’d just been so focused on herself and her shame that she’d blinded herself to it.

I had blind myself to it, too.

That night, crawling into bed, I knew God had allowed me to see a miracle.

It’s an every day miracle in the life of a Christian being sanctified, but it is a life-changing miracle no less.

And God let me know that this, this is why He does not expect perfection of me.

And this is why I have no right to expect perfection of myself.

He’s already made me perfect.

I’ll fail, but… it doesn’t have to be a dramatic statement about me.

The fact of the matter is, the payment is already covered. So yes, I’ll fail, but I’m okay. And He loves me.

Mercy is stronger. He allowed me to see that when mercy is weak, I am responsible. But mercy is not weak, never. Never.

The punishment has been taken, and mercy, real mercy, is mine.

I’ve got a lot to learn and a lot to unlearn.

But God’s teaching me, day by day.

And I’m excited to give up my flawed beliefs as a sacrifice of thanksgiving to Him.

Two Hands.

I think someday there will be someone who won’t leave.

I think someday there will be someone who will see me as worth fighting for.

I don’t think they will be without fault,

Or fear,

Or struggles that make that fight a difficult one.

I simply believe they will be willing to fight.

That’s all I really want.

I want someone to see me as worth that fight.

Fear is only as big as you let it be

And struggles only win when you give up

And insecurities can find their rest within confidence gained through knowing that God is right.

But I don’t want to be worth that fight just because of who I am, because

it isn’t me.

I’m broken,

and I struggle,

and frankly I know that most people will leave and it’ll take a lot for me to believe that someone would want me forever.

I’m not enough of a reason, because I’m human, and eventually I’ll fail.

Eventually I won’t do it right,

I’ll let him down,

I will disappoint.

I’m not enough.

But God?...

God is enough.

And love

is enough.

And I guess when God told me to love, I realized that to do so effectively, I had to be willing to fight all the things in my life that hinder love.

I would have to fight my fear, my insecurities, my struggles, because God told me to love, and in order to obey, I have to fight.

And I guess one day I believe that someone will be willing to love me.

But they will see that I only have two hands,

two hands that I can either stretch out to embrace all the Lord puts in my life,

or can be weighed down with the responsibility of keeping his attention;

But they are not strong enough to do both.

They were not meant to be.

I was given two hands,

But for only one purpose.

Love is a choice.

It is not something I can earn because I am human and it is perfect.

Love is a gift that must be freely given, and anything else is a lie.

It is not love.

So I do believe, someday, there will be someone who will choose to love me.

Not because of me,

but because of Him.

I look forward to meeting that man, and knowing I’ll be safe in his love because it won’t be dependent on me.

It won’t be dependent on me,

or my actions,

or my ability to please him,

or that expectation that I will.

But instead,

it will be dependent on God.

And God never fails.

So

just as I will never have a reason to give up my fight,

he will never have a reason to give up his.

As Small as I Feel

I woke up and rolled over to my phone. It was 9:00am. I’m so glad it’s summer. This is the latest I’ve slept in so long.

I breathed in deep and opened a message from one of my best friends. She’d sent me a picture with Matthew 9:25-27 highlighted. “And they went and woke Him up, saying, ‘Save us Lord; we are perishing.’ And He said to them, ‘Why are you afraid, Oh you of little faith?’ then He rose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm.”

“I love this verse” my friend said.

I wiped the sleep from my eyes and smiled, thankful that I have friends who send me things like this. We talked for a little bit about God’s power and what this verse said about who He is. Because of that exchange, I wrote a message to her that struck me even as I typed the words: “It amazes me how powerful He is over the things that we allow to have power in our lives.”

How many times have I felt overwhelmed by something beyond my control? How many times in my life have I felt under the power of a circumstance, situation, a sickness, or person that has had extreme influence over an aspect of my life? There are times I have felt trapped, out of control, and at a complete loss for independent action.

And in these moments, I feel so very small.

In my experience with these situations it doesn’t really matter what the powerful object is; the feeling remains the same. It’s a smallness that comes with the knowledge that there is nothing I can do to fix whatever is going on.

It’s good to know that to God, those powerful things are as small as I feel.

It’s all small to Him. Not insignificant, just small; containable; malleable… something He has full power over. That’s my God.

“Be anxious for nothing…” God is in control.

It’s not a huge thought. It isn’t something you haven’t heard before. It’s not something I’ve never heard before! But today there was a slight change in my heart. I gave over a perspective to God that I’d been holding onto; and that was simply that sometimes my problems are too big. Sometimes, because they seem so big to me, I believe that they must be that big, or at least a little big, to God. Not that He can’t overcome them, or can’t control them, but simply that I believe it will probably take some work for Him to do so.

I have been so wrong.

He is the only big thing in this entire universe.

Everything is His to control. He allows for things to happen that are against His will for His ultimate glory, but that does not mean that the things He allows are too big for Him to change. Nothing would be “hard” for Him to change.

I think sometimes that’s harder for me to believe. Because in my limited view of life, I see world peace and an end to world hunger and human trafficking and all these things that just prove how desperately we need Him… I see that these things are not in accordance to His will for this world. So I think it’s sometimes easier to believe that they’re a little too big for Him to change. And they simply aren’t! He’s just allowing it.

One day, there will be no more tears.

One day, there will be no more darkness.

One day, peace will reign because the Prince of Peace will be upon the Throne and all the world will bow before Him praising His Name, knowing with everything that makes their very beings that He is the Lord of all.

That day is coming.

And in the mean time, He has given us an opportunity. A very big, lifelong opportunity to operate within these dark circumstances and situations that have power over us and keep us from always living the perfect white-picket fence lives we want for ourselves. The moments where our lives seem perfect, and a sickness hits, or death takes away a loved one, or a difficult person enters our lives, these are not things God does not have power over. He has simply allowed them.

One day they will be gone because God has that power, He’s just waiting to use it worldwide. But sometimes, in the intimacy of our lives, He does use it. We call those moments ‘miracles’.  The moments when the things we knew we had no control over are changed, and our prayers are given the answer we were asking for, and we stand back humbly, knowing that it was all God.

One day, the world will see those moments.

But it won’t be a moment.

It will be forever.

It will be the Kingdom of Heaven.

And we will call it Home.

Arms.

How wonderful it would be to describe the moments within our souls that do not have nametags, labels, or descriptions. Those moments when our hearts are full beyond simple contentment but satisfied enough to not explode into loose exuberance. The moments when the world is right and all is at peace, and there’s a laugh in your throat and it is taking everything within you to not jump and dance and laugh and sing and sometimes, because the feeling is so strong, you might just dance without the music, and sing without written melodies. But even after, you have to stand in silence because those motions were not enough to let out the joy you carry, and those words were not enough to exhaust the excitement within you.

I wish there was a word for the moments when tears trickle down your heart in the slowest, saddest, most depressing way imaginable. It isn’t dramatic or active enough to be anguish, but it’s much deeper than simple sadness. When the very breath you breathe is weighted by the inexpressible pain. Even if you tried to express it, you know nothing could be said to heal the hurt or fix the pain or make the dissonance within you harmonious again. Nothing could suffice, because in those moments, the fragments are too widespread to be blanketed by words alone.

How glorious would it be to describe the moment you are taken aback by how loved you are. When a gesture has been made, and a tear is swimming in your eye and “Thank you” isn’t enough, and a monologue through laughter isn’t either. You just exist, hoping that somehow they know that nothing in the world could compare to knowing that you are loved.

And if only there were words for when that person leaves, physically or spiritually, from your world to another.  The deep loss in your stomach, the choke in your throat, the spontaneous and unexpected moments when they cross your mind and tears surface and all you can think is, “why is a stupid pillow case making me cry?” because it’s too painful to ask why you have to be here without them. 

If only words could cover these.

If only words were able to define them, and put them into a box so everyone looking on could easily understand how it feels to be alive.

For others to use a dictionary to look up these words, and based on the accurate description of these experiences, tailor their sympathy, empathy, and reactions accordingly.

But I guess that’s the funny thing about words… you can use them all day long, but they don’t have feelings attached to them, or experiences, or built in empathy. There aren’t words to explain the moments that are more felt than acted; the moments that waft in and last for a willowy moment, easy to break but strong enough to be fully experienced.

There aren’t specific words.

But, for these words that don’t exist in moments we can’t describe, God has given us arms. He’s given us arms to lift as a signal for a friend. Arms, to wrap around and soothe the shaking body of someone whose sorrow is too great for them to bear alone. Arms, to hold tight to someone whose love has made you feel more important than anything else on this earth ever has. Arms, to wrap another in your joy, as you jump up and down, throw your head back, and laugh to celebrate all the beautiful things within you. 

Sometimes, an embrace is the only way to let another know just how important they are.

Sometimes, we do not have words.

But in those times, we do have arms. We have arms to draw close, to hold near, to use to steady when we fall, and to pick another up when they do the same.

And when arms are not enough, we have silence.

Sometimes silence speaks the loudest of all.

It’s a gift. Within it lives precious, indescribable things that are a gift to watch but a responsibility to see.

After an embrace or a tight hand squeeze, there are times when the only thing left to say is  nothing at all; to let your presence speak for you.

In a world so controlled by what is said, humanity can sometimes be far more impacted by what is left unsaid, and instead, is shown in a touch, in a look, or in a silent, supportive presence.

These things are gifts from God to us. They show love, because love that is just spoken is not love at all.Love is shown. It’s an action. It’s a verb.

And with it, arms complete the sentence that words could only begin.