your grace is: enough? March 12, 2009

today was an awesome day. here’s what i did:
woke up–my morning got thrown off a bit because deb came home at like 7 am and took a shower when i was going to, but w/e i still made it out the door on time.
went to laura’s and did funnel stuff.
went to work. staff meeting, and labeling issues of Connections. got to talk with the girl who works in the office with me who in seminary at Princeton. She’s not as amazing as I’d hoped. you know how when you meet another christian its like YAY! wow! sister! it didn’t feel like that. so who knows.
after work, i met jess cheng downstairs on the 2nd floor where she was doing her homework, and we went to small world coffee and chatted for a while.
then i drove to Rider and Caroline swiped me in and i ate dinner with everyone. After dinner we wanted to play basketball but they would have charged me $5 to get in. weird, right? so then jen and i ran around the indoor track twice cause she had alot of energy.
then large group! i really love meeting people. and catching up with all the rider people. i met zach, he’s really cool. and amanda, and amanda, and… kendall. and a girl cassy who came for the first time that night! she went to my high school! it was crazy, kinda, cause she came up to me and was like, are you a garf? haha and i knew what she meant. lol. it was cool. i don’t know what her faith is like, but everyone was excited to see her there and i noticed a few people going over to meet her, which is good. i love the rider peeps. they excite me.

the ridiculous thing about today was this: chris loesser spoke at large group, which i think i knew already but i wasn’t sure, i just wanted to go hang out with rider. but whats crazy is that he got up in the front and the first slide said, “Loving Yourself” or something. and i was like *slap hand to forehead * what the heck! and so what i did, was i sat on the edge of my seat, eyes focused. i was going to soak in every word he said. because i still have no idea what this is supposed to look like. and he compared the way God loves us, the way we love other people, and then how we love ourselves. and we looked at the “love your neighbor as yourself” and a blue like jazz passage, and then we looked at the parable of the lost son. and what stuck out to me was this:
The son went away and couldn’t even eat the pig slop where he was working. he was so low. so he came back to his father. but here’s what he planned to say: “I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called our son make me like one of your hired men.”
that stuck out to me because i never noticed it before. he was not going to go back and expect to be front and center. he was willing to be put low. and his father, comes running and gives him robes and jewelry and puts a feast together.
i used to identify heavily with the other brother, who pouts about because it wasn’t fair, here he was being very good and following the rules, and the brother comes back and gets a celebration. but tonight i identified with this feeling of unworthiness.
but GRACE is that Jesus would take us back AND give us the lamborghini.

GRACE, to me, is this: unmerited favor. We didn’t deserve to live and to be with God, but he came to earth to die and rise for us. That is grace. We are forgiven. Every mistake we make and thing we do wrong, doesn’t matter after all because the blood of Jesus covers us. God “forgets” our sins.

We are supposed to have this grace for other people, and for ourselves. this is where it stops. once the last song started at large group, i went and sat at the back of the room. i journaled and journaled about how i have NO IDEA how to love myself the way God does. I really just don’t. and i was practically beating myself up over the fact that i don’t know how to not beat myself up. its a little crazy. i wanted to pray with someone but i didn’t. i just sat there.

on the ride home i put a couple pieces together. when i totally screwed stuff up from the slt meeting and everything, i was a wreck. but nystrom, when we talked on the phone, said that she forgave me. just like that. she said she wasn’t mad. and i just bawled. and–(we don’t check our mail often) on wednesday i got a letter from laura in the mail saying that she wasn’t mad at me either and again i cried. i felt SO LOVED. and so baffled, to be quite honest. What i did deserved people to be mad at me, to be upset, to be concerned to want to throw a fit, or a least hold a little grudge. and here people were like, just telling me they loved me. i almost wanted to reject it. because i didn’t deserve it. i was baffled also because, well yeah i couldn’t see how they could be like that. and i think that is because i never would have been like that myself.
and i realized tonight as i was driving home that even if i don’t know how to have grace with myself, i need to have grace with others. and perhaps the reason i can’t have grace for others is because i don’t have it for myself. and i want to be that loving, i want to be someone who will no matter what, say, “hey, its okay, i love you”. i wish that THAT would be the first thought on my heart, every day. and while i can’t fathom doing that for myself, i think a first step would be to have it with others. its going to take alot of work. OR– alot of GRACE. i’ll need to spend more time with God, and more time in the Word, to have the perspective that God does. I think i’ve been stuck in my own mindset for so long that I can’t see it outside my scope of what i see. i have to learn somehow, this grace thing. and here i am feeling like an awful person for not having grace with other people, or with myself. and the fact that i need to WORK ON IT seems ironic and daunting. and awful.
i feel like i’m constantly striving. and striving for GRACE seems backwards. what do i do just sit there? i mean, i can pray, sure. i guess i’ll just have to pray and pray and pray and pray for grace.

cause for real, i still don’t get it. i don’t understand it. i understand that my debt is forgiven, that grace i get. its fabulous, off the hook ridiculous. but the day to day, uh uhh, no way. i don’t get it. and it frustrates the heck out of me.

all around good day. God definitely trying to speak to me.

oh something else. all of this God stuff has been on my mind so much lately. i feel overwhelmed. i have not gotten hardly ANY of my work done, because every night i get back to my room and my bed and all i want to do is process and read and figure it all out so it goes away. this discomfort that i say i enjoy so much, well, i only enjoy it because it brings me a sense of urgency. which is SO impractical. Gosh. Like I love Jesus so much, but how am I supposed to be responsible and get all my work done? that frustrates me alot. its tough.
friday is going to be overload work day, somehow i’ve gotta get it all done. and i’ll probably beat myself up if i don’t get it all done. haha. well, not funny.

good night.