A Simple Message

Hi.

Allow me to cut the formal salutations and get right down to dirt and grime and business. Because this is what this blog is all about. Taking off our unrealistically perfect masks and revealing our true emptiness because we are nothing of ourselves without Christ’s holiness. And I want this blog to be a friendly place without judgment or criticism because all of us stand equally guilty before God and are only here today because of Christ. So let me unscrew this jar of jelly and begin by telling you who I truly am and what this blog is doing floating out in the realm of technology.

First off, I am a born-again Christian with enormous dreams and irrational expectations. Irrational as how pi can never fully end because the string of numbers floats off into infinity and no human can comprehend infiniteness, and neither is it any easier for me to perceive reality. When I was four, I accepted Christ with my mom but did not truly grasp what Christianity meant. I understood that Jesus had sacrificed Himself as a perfect, aromatic offering of ripped flesh and wasted body to God in order to rescue me from an eternal, living hell of existence without God. Later, He had victoriously risen from the dead, conquering the grave and providing a forever, never-ending, never-dying life with Him in heaven for all who accept that lavish gift. Belief wasn’t the issue here. I just couldn’t mentally visualize the concept of surrendering my life to His will and living each day for His glory. Five years later, I started to doubt my salvation, especially when I sinned miserably. I felt shattered under ever present, crushing weight of sin like Atlas stumbling under the leaden burden of the world. A particular sin overcame me again and again, and waves of guilt caused me to choke on my own weakness. But then, I gradually realized that Christians still sin. We aren’t perfect people and we will always fail. But we are not satisfied with failing. We can look to God for forgiveness and realize that although we may trip and tumble down the steep stairs of life, we have a God mightier than our broken selves and that He still loves us despite how we fall time after time again.

I still struggle with my sin. I am far from perfect. My sin still affects me in innumerous areas, like when I squint into the mirror in the morning and feel amazed that I’m still alive. I never feel good enough, which often triggers a self-indulgent depression. I always feel like I’m a failure and seek good grades and achievements to boost my self-esteem, as if trophies and high grades can eliminate my mistakes like bleach removes stains. Because I fail so much spiritually, I want to atone for my mistakes by having a palpable worth to demonstrate that I am a good person, when really I’m not. When really, I am a chaotic, jumbled mess, and I constantly discover that trying to be good enough only reveals the emptiness inside. 

But even though I cannot fathom why, God loves me, and that makes me worth something. That alone fills the cross-shaped hole in my heart. 

I have a Savior who covers up my imperfection with His perfection.

He loves me, even though I sin and fail Him day after day after day. I am viewed as perfect before God because of His Son’s goodness and love and mercy. And that’s all that matters.

I don’t have to be good enough because Jesus has been my good enough.

So this is my blog. A blog where I can come to terms with who I am and collapse on my knees because I am unable and undeserving, and only Jesus can redeem us from our fallen selves.

This is my story. A story of brokenness and tears and sin so bleak it shames me to remember the past. But this is also a story of how Light erupted through the blind darkness and provided dazzling, gloriously real hope. This is a story of Jesus and how we can discover joy in the night and whisper praises when there seems to be nothing to give thanks for because we have a God who will never abandon or forsake us or stop loving us, and even though some days we don’t feel like living, He supplies the strength to carry on.

This is my heart. This is my true self where I can reveal my mistakes and no longer pretend to be a perfect angel because I’m not. Because I am nothing without Christ’s perfection. Without Him, I am only a girl, one more person in the 7 billion faces wandering through this temporary world, endeavoring to find rest, when in reality, there is no rest on this desolate world. The only rest we can obtain is extraterrestrial. 

This is my signpost. I want my life and this blog to be a huge blinking arrow pointing to the One who deserves all praise and glory. I am alive today only by His goodness and His grace and His ever-present hand directing my life. Please realize that I myself am a work-in-progress and fail many, many times. I’m sorry if my writing can seem overly prideful or emotional sometimes. But I am so incredibly thankful that I have a Master Carpenter, who continues to remodel and superglue together this shattered heart of mine, molding me into His likeness everyday, and that makes each day worth living.

To know that we are worth something because of the Savior holding our worthlessness together and who is shaping us into perfection. To know that we don’t have to try to achieve perfection because God sees us as perfect already. 

I truly can’t imagine how He could grant us a sweeter gift than this beautiful, glorious self-identity in Him.

Lord, thank You.