Take a journey into my mind

Sometimes I wonder if I'm crazy to maintain a blog. I work in a public sector and anyone could just google my name and find my blog. I really don't like that.

Also, I find it really hard to be as brutally honest as I want to be. Some of my favorite blogs share some of the hardest stories. And I want my blog to be a place where I can record the hard things and the good things. But I'm afraid that if I tell you about the things I suck at and struggle with, that your judgment will be too much for me. I worry that I'll say too much or not enough and you'll misunderstand me.

But for today, I'm going to let all of my insecurities about this blog go and just tell you what's really on my mind.

I felt really guilty when my grandmother died in August. Because I didn't adore her the way people typically adore their grandparents. In fact, I disliked her a lot of the time. She said and did things that made our relationship hard. And I was unforgiving. And that unforgiveness turned into bitterness and then her mind went and it was too late to heal what was lost. She is the one who taught me how to sing "Jesus Loves Me" and "Jesus Loves the Little Children". She's the grandmother who taught me nursery rhymes and how to like pretty things. I never got to mend that relationship. It just kind of died and then she died.

When my grandmother died it made me really question other relationships that could be healed but aren't. Last year my relationship with my other grandparents fell apart. For a lot of reasons, my grandfather and I stand on opposite sides of some important issues. And he threatened me based on those disagreements, and not for the first time. So I walked away and didn't look back. I still go around for family things. But I barely speak to him. In the last year and a half I've said a handful of words to my grandparents. And none of those words were "I love you". I have no idea how to begin healing that relationship. Some days I don't even know if that's what I really want. 

And I'm afraid that these feelings and damaged relationships make me a failure. Satan tells me over and over again that I am a failure. He loves to point out how all these things are my fault. All the things I've done wrong in these relationships. How I'm unlovable. I believe the devil when he tells me how ugly, and messed up, and damaged I am. I believe him because I am messed up. But the real failure is that some days I believe that's the end of the story.

But that's not the end of the story at all. While Satan is screaming my failures to me, Jesus is whispering that it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter how ruined or spent I might be because it's not about me. Grace isn't given to prove how deserving or loving I am. It's the opposite. Grace is given to prove how loving and deserving God is. I am undeserving and damaged and unlovely. But God still wants me and loves me and pursues me with relentless love because he deserves my love and praise. And maybe those words seem counter-intuitive to you. But for me, the Gospel story frees me. Because my story doesn't hinge on how good I am. It hinges on how good God is.

I don't have it all figured out. I can't go back and change the way things have happened. But God already knows the end of my story. And it ends in his glory. And I am so thankful for that.