I have been walking a path with God through shame and conversely joy for a little while now. I have been letting him lead me through this difficult journey. Sometimes it’s painful and I withdraw but usually, I participate as he plunders in my heart and soul. I listen as he holds up my thoughts and feelings, actions and behaviors. He holds them up to the light of the gospel and filters them through truth. I must admit sometimes the line between apathy and submission is hard to distinguish. Frankly, sometimes I just stop and refuse to move. But only for a little while. My soul has already tasted the fruit of His joy in my life and I long for more. And other times the pain of an addictive perfectionism is too suffocating to endure alone any longer. I feel as if He is unraveling tangles of misconceptions, lies and then deceits I have bought into. I feel as if he is rescuing me from the prisons I have constructed for myself. Patiently He is walking me through the minefield of the carefully constructed war zone I have allowed existing in my mind. His love is jealous and will not allow me to be hurt and stolen from him, even if I am the perpetrator. Sometimes it feels like we are swimming upstream, against the current of society. It feels as if the surge of the tide of this world is going to pass over me as it crushes me against the shore, breaking my spirit into mere fragments of the beautiful creation He has made. But it’s those moments of joy stolen in the day where I know God is walking with me and relishing those moments of mutual delight that make this difficult path sweet. It’s the safety of intimate confession, the peace of being loved and known and the absolute certainty of the goodness of God that compels me to keep following on this journey.Thank
Thank you, Father, for loving me and caring enough for me to lovingly restore me to wholeness. Thank you, Father, for your patience and never-ending grace that continues to nourish me even when I am a petulant child, ungrateful and spoiled. Continue to love me, change me and save me from myself. Lead me into joy and away from the misery, I find for myself. In your wonderful name, amen.