Rectify
Another year has come and gone....and I can honestly say that I am happy to say goodbye to 2016.
I know I am not the same woman headed into 2017 as the girl who sat here last year. This year I've experienced so many incredible ups and downs, highs and lows. I've seen healing and growth in places I never imagined possible. I've called myself strong and worthy and confident. I've learned to say no and be ok with letting people down.
Yet with all this growth, this year I've never questioned my identity and faith in Him so incredibly much.
I'm ending this year on a season that I just wish would end. It's one where I'm fighting on a daily basis to stand in the absolute truth of the gospel. Some days, I just don't see the point...for some reason, people believe that when they become a Christian, life gets easier.
Cause my heart doesn't get why I can't just stop.
Ever fiber in my being tells me that it's so much easier to just go the way of the world.
To give into the various temptations that entice our body and mind.
To focus on the things that are idolised in this world - money, work, relationships, sex, power, physical appearance, materialism.
To just let go of the rope and anchor and go where the waves take you.
Yet no matter what, I can't stop. I can't give up on this faith, as small as it is in my heart. Although I may not feel God or see Him in my situation, or even think that He would want me after the ways I've strayed - I fight back in the exhaustion.
In the darkest of my days these past few months, it seems like I get hit with another burden affecting a loved one. It seems like the moments when I feel like my faith needs to be at its strongest in order to help others, it's at it's weakest.
I wanted to keep all this pain inside - all the struggle in my head instead of letting others in. I'm serving as a worker overseas after all...how can I admit that my own faith is fragile when I'm supposed to be introducing others to it all?
With the little strength I had left, I shared my struggles and sins and pain with an incredible friend.
It was messy.
I felt so exposed and raw.
But instead of feeling condemnation....my honesty led to her honesty as well. She was able to share her own struggles. We were both able to take off our masks, let our sins be exposed, and encourage each other in LOVE.
In that moment, I realised that I don't have to be all that this world says a 'perfect' Christian should be. I simply must be real. In sharing my scars and battles, the Spirit was able to bring healing.
He was able to Rectify our hearts. He was able to begin to Release us from the cords threatening to hold us down.
While I'm still fighting this battle, I am encouraged and strengthened by the fact He can still use me - broken and cracked, scarred and weak - to set others free.
And that, my friend, is what this life is about. It's what Jesus came here to do. His whole ministry was focused on setting captives free, binding up their broken hearts, and sharing the good news with people.
My deepest desire is for us, as Christians, to share our weaknesses. I pray we are able to remove that mask that sits on our face on Sunday mornings or hides behind verses like 'it all works for the good of those whom He calls.'
I've heard the same from various friends and family:
2016 has been rough for a lot of people.
I know I am not the same woman headed into 2017 as the girl who sat here last year. This year I've experienced so many incredible ups and downs, highs and lows. I've seen healing and growth in places I never imagined possible. I've called myself strong and worthy and confident. I've learned to say no and be ok with letting people down.
Yet with all this growth, this year I've never questioned my identity and faith in Him so incredibly much.
I'm ending this year on a season that I just wish would end. It's one where I'm fighting on a daily basis to stand in the absolute truth of the gospel. Some days, I just don't see the point...for some reason, people believe that when they become a Christian, life gets easier.
Maybe I still naively believe that, too?
Cause my heart doesn't get why I can't just stop.
Ever fiber in my being tells me that it's so much easier to just go the way of the world.
To give into the various temptations that entice our body and mind.
To focus on the things that are idolised in this world - money, work, relationships, sex, power, physical appearance, materialism.
To just let go of the rope and anchor and go where the waves take you.
Yet no matter what, I can't stop. I can't give up on this faith, as small as it is in my heart. Although I may not feel God or see Him in my situation, or even think that He would want me after the ways I've strayed - I fight back in the exhaustion.
In the darkest of my days these past few months, it seems like I get hit with another burden affecting a loved one. It seems like the moments when I feel like my faith needs to be at its strongest in order to help others, it's at it's weakest.
But I know there is a point.
I wanted to keep all this pain inside - all the struggle in my head instead of letting others in. I'm serving as a worker overseas after all...how can I admit that my own faith is fragile when I'm supposed to be introducing others to it all?
With the little strength I had left, I shared my struggles and sins and pain with an incredible friend.
It was messy.
I felt so exposed and raw.
But instead of feeling condemnation....my honesty led to her honesty as well. She was able to share her own struggles. We were both able to take off our masks, let our sins be exposed, and encourage each other in LOVE.
In that moment, I realised that I don't have to be all that this world says a 'perfect' Christian should be. I simply must be real. In sharing my scars and battles, the Spirit was able to bring healing.
He was able to Rectify our hearts. He was able to begin to Release us from the cords threatening to hold us down.
While I'm still fighting this battle, I am encouraged and strengthened by the fact He can still use me - broken and cracked, scarred and weak - to set others free.
And that, my friend, is what this life is about. It's what Jesus came here to do. His whole ministry was focused on setting captives free, binding up their broken hearts, and sharing the good news with people.
My deepest desire is for us, as Christians, to share our weaknesses. I pray we are able to remove that mask that sits on our face on Sunday mornings or hides behind verses like 'it all works for the good of those whom He calls.'
Lets be real. Lets be raw. Lets be vulnerable. Lets be weak.
Because then He can became REAL.
He can become our STRENGTH.
He can RECTIFY.
At the cross of Christ I know
that despair has been removed,
that it drowns beneath the crushing weight of hope as found in you.
As blood flows and puddles to cover every self-inflicted bruise,
murder becomes salvation, the resurrected truth.
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