We sing songs with words that make me want to run and hide. Do I really "give my life to worship You"? Do I "surrender all"? Does my soul really thirst after Him as the deer pants for the water? There are times I don't say the words for fear that I will be speaking a lie.
I lie in bed in the early morning hours praying for mercy, grace, strength, cleansing and filling - and before I have walked ten minutes into the day I fail.
I see others around me moved to tears when my eyes remain dry and my heart numb. I know all the right words for every situation (after all, I have grown up on them) and find myself, all too often, doubting them.
And so I begin to question whose child I really am, for I feel like an impostor. I don't look like everyone else. I don't feel as though I measure up to what I know I ought to be.
Then He gently reminds me of a moment that we have both marked, but I have forgotten. It was a time when I prayed as I had never prayed before - desperate to have this deep need met in the only way I thought possible. For such a long, long time heaven was silent.
One day, as I swept the kitchen floor, the oft-repeated prayer echoing through the empty house, I "heard" Him whisper into my heart: "Do you want my will, or do you want Me to give you what you have been asking for?" In that moment I knew the answer. "I want Your will Lord. I want it whatever the cost, because I know You. I know that Your love will only do what is best. I trust in You."
In that moment, I knew beyond question whose child I was. I know it now. When I fail to measure up, when I don't experience the same emotions as others, when I am filled with doubt, when I get my priorities totally out of order, when I desire other things more than Him, when I don't look like everyone else - even then, I am His child.
He sees my heart and, in spite of the cracks and flaws, claims me as His own. I see myself with human eyes and feel discouraged. He sees me through the prism of His Son and finds me righteous.
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Blessings,
Linda
