Chelsea's my in my face friend. Chelsea's my reads me like a book friend. The chick can call me out. She takes some getting used to but I'm so glad she's friends with me. I need her in my life.
Her email basically said, "who do you think you are not accepting this gift of grace you've been given. you idiot."
No, really. It pretty much went like that.
I didn't reply right away. My first thought was, "I don't think I'm anybody, don't you get it? That's why I don't feel like I'm deserving of this thing called grace." But I didn't say that. I said nothing til the next morning, and even then I had to consider how to reply to her because she's not someone you can say pretty little words to. She reads through your crap and she'll just call you out on it even more.
(note: if you don't have a Chelsea in your life, you need one. now. Go get her.)
Josh had taken the girls with him to his parents on that Saturday morning when I was going to reply to Chelsea. Since I didn't have children at home to be concerned about burning the house down or Sharpie-ing the place up, I decided to do both my hair and make up after my shower.
I know!
I'm blow drying my (now short and blonde) hair and I'm considering my words to Chelsea. She had asked in her email if I had sinned as badly as Paul or David. Asking whose sins I was comparing mine to. But that no matter, goodie goodie Christian girl or not, it still wasn't enough. That's why it's grace.
So I'm blow drying my hair and I'm thinking about Paul's and David's sins and how I've never killed anyone or had anyone killed, but David and I, well we've got some things in common. And look how his story came out? He was used by God huge even though he screwed up pretty big time.
Still blow drying my hair and I begin to think about my sins. I start thinking about them individually when this picture forms in my head of a backpack. A tattered backpack full of these bricks. Each labeled with a sin of mine. Names and places and faces and words and actions. And this backpack is so, so heavy. Just seeing this picture in my mind makes me tired of carrying it.
I finish my hair and my make up and I sit down at my laptop to email Chelsea about my sin picture. I'm typing out this picture of the backpack and I tell her I'm tired. And then, then I heard a voice that I haven't heard in how many months or years I don't know, but this. This is what He said to me,
"You weren't ever meant to carry that."
I had to stop my email to Chelsea because I couldn't see the screen anymore. There were tears like there haven't been tears.
I could hardly breathe.
My backpack.
He's already carried it.
He carried it and He emptied it.
Well if there's nothing in it anymore, why do I insist on lugging it around?
There's no need. I have no reason to carry around those sin bricks and this shame and this mess of who I was and who I am. I get stuck in this thought process that if I forgive myself for who I am and what I've been that it's like saying that mess was okay. I don't want anyone to think I think I was or am okay. That's why I carry it. I carry it hunched over.
It's like carrying it with me is telling people that I remember. I know. I know what a I screw up I've been and am. See? I'm not forgetting, don't you worry. I'm showing God that I haven't forgotten. "See, God. Here I am. I've got this bag. And I've got these sins. And I'm not letting them go because. Well, because." But honestly, for so long I haven't talked to God at all about me. Because how can you talk to Someone when you feel too messed up to talk to them?
I read words by CH Spurgeon just an hour after emailing Chelsea. These words have been on repeat in my heart this week:
"You can stand before God as if you were Christ, because Christ stood before God as if He were you."
Reread that with me.
"You can stand before God as if you were Christ, because Christ stood before God as if He were you."
Are you picking up what Spurgeon's laying down?
Because I am. And this is what I'm picking up and I'm freaking out ridiculously excited about it.
It's this. God sees me as He sees Jesus. God sees you as He sees Jesus.
God sees us as He sees Jesus.
Sorry, I'm not trying to yell. But, okay yes I am. Because this is a big deal. For both of us. You and me. Maybe you've gotten this all along and if so, I'm really happy for you.
But you see, I haven't. This is my 19th summer I've been a Christian. And all this time I've never grasped, never understood just how God views me. Not ever til I read those words by Spurgeon. Oh my God, how He loves me. Because Jesus.
Because Jesus.
I'm taking off my backpack full of sin bricks.
Because He says I was never meant to carry it in the first place.
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