In these last few days leading up to Christmas, I'm sitting here collecting the moments of this last year and piecing them together and I have only to look at the events that have unfolded to know that much of me is diametrically in opposition to the other. I have lived a schizophrenic life and in no other year has it been more apparent than in this one. Part homebody, part get-go businesswoman; in love with simplicity, yet enamored by the luxury money can buy. Easily incited, and yet immediately quieted by the right words. Truly solitary in soul and yet needing roots, connections, branches thrown into the ether to be known by, to hang on to for balance, for structure, even for contention.
I am being reminded that much of me is dross.
Going through old prayer journals reminded me of how much I've changed and how much still fights tooth and nail with God. Some of the first few words Bombie has learned are, "No! My!" Sometimes I think God gave me children to remind me how hard it must have been for Him to love me. Bombie teaches me more about the intrinsic nature of sin more than mounds of theological literature. She lies, she manipulates, she complains, she rebels. And she's only two. No one who has a two year old believes in the intrinsic goodness and innocence of childhood. Something about her - like about all children - is broken and it doesn't take a Christian long to know what.
Something about me is broken, too. I suppose I have always known that. But this was the year The Lord decided to begin to fix it. I cannot fathom a God that waits for my approval, but He did. I accepted Christ this year in January and was baptized in October. And He has held me together ever since. He is piecing me together day by day, hour by hour and sometimes minute by painful minute. There are so many times this year I have gone to Him simply grateful for Him, for His Spirit, for the reminder that whether I know it or not, He lives and He lives in me.
Perhaps the biggest change I've experienced this year is that I've begun to see people differently. I see them less as victims of their circumstances or as survivors. I see them less as needing to please me, support me, validate me. On the flip side, I also see less of a need to love myself, to forgive myself. Someone wrote that if we could do all these things, we would have no need of God. And maybe that's what the world is all about anyway. Every television show screams messages of loving yourself first. The idea that he who wants to be first among you should be everyone else's servant seems ludicrous. And may be so. But today I feel crowned.
Yes, much of me is still dross. But He is my Refining Fire. I am schizophrenic but He is wholly holy. I have no need to learn to love myself because He has called me His beloved.
For this Christmas, I will rest in that.
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