a cross-centered life

Rilke said "if you think you are capable of living without writing, do not write" and I've tried to live it but it gets too heavy.. you know? I've gathered up my thoughts from this summer, weaving them together like waves, like particles of light (deb talan's method) and I too have imposed it on myself like a vow made in war: I will write or die. But you'll have to bare with me, its all very hazy, its all very grey. It's all very obsolete as everything becomes without recollection. But all the more, I figure I can at least poke at my thoughts with words and see what comes of it. Maybe a few rambled on pages, or maybe something from the heart. Who really knows?

I've come to the horrible realization of my ugly failure. Now I've said it often in the pit of inadequacy which seems to always rise around the time I must write it or die. But this time it sort of blind side hit me, with more hopelessness I could ever dare imagine. He lived the life we were created to live, and then He died to pay the price for the life we now live instead. We've heard some form of this over and over in our lives, as if it were some sort of an equation and we're supposed to figure out where we equal out, where we fit into it all. But the truth is, I don't think I'll ever be able to figure it out. What could possibly be in exchange for that kind of beauty?? And yet I do it everyday, this great exchange. We hear about the "great fall of man" This great descent into darkness. How foolish are we?! It wasn't a descent at all, it wasn't a fall, a trip, a hiccup, it was an exchange rather, a great exchange of truth for a lie. And that's why we will always be victims in a battle that we never had to fight. Then why. Why do I feel like I'm fighting everyday? If everything is said and done and paid for in the full with more grace than I will ever be able to understand or be gracious enough to pay back, than why does my brand new heart desire this world's attention so easily? If I am made new, not just a cleaned up, better version of my old self, why does my heart still love what is only temporary?

John told believers "My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense - Jesus Christ, the Righteous One." - 1John 2:1
John tell us not to sin, but he knows that if anybody does sin (which we will, and he makes that quite clear) than we have an advocate in the Father. Jesus becomes the substitutionary atonement for the believer's sin. In this way the Father's wrath is propitiated, satisfied, turned away from my sin and directed towards Christ. So when I wake up everyday with this idea of who I am, what I think I have, what I think I can do, Jesus stands beside the Father and says No. You cannot punish her for that. You cannot punish her for her sin, her selfishness, her fear, her pride, her envy and jealousy, her lack of trust in everything You are, You cannot punish Mollie for the way she is grieving you, because I bore it all. I already paid for that, and Your grace is sufficient of all things.

This hurts. A little.

So by asking God for a redemptive heart, I've discovered a few things. It hurts. Redemption is a two way process. First its repentance, and then its like a downward slope into discovering the depth of how deeply sinful I am. I am more sinful than I've ever dared to imagine, but He is more loving than I've ever dared to dream. Until we see ourselves as "big" sinners, we cannot see Him as a "big" savior.

And this is where it hurts.

John also said, God is light. in him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with Him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth. But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.
- 1John 1:5-7

It hurts me because It's hard to walk in the light. I can walk in the light in a lot of aspects of my life, but a lot of areas remain cold and lifeless. I can have fellowship with God, and yet I deny the fellowship around me as a witness to my family.

This conviction has knocked the wind out of me:

being able to love on friends and the young life ministry, pursuing those relationships
and yet not being able to love my own family outwardly and deeply in the same amount.
It breaks my heart over and over again,
because I can preach the gospel in my foolish wisdom, something so dangerous and arrogant,
but the real tragedy, the real hurt, the real violence that is more alarming to me than seeing them stray from the path of Christ, is not what I say over and over to make them see the need for Jesus, or my ignorant attempt to persuade them the truth, it is the way that I throw away that need everyday, it is the way that I have not lived out the gospel to them in such a way that they can rightfully blame me for the way that I live and point out the gap between my words and my actions, the gap between Christ's salvation in me and my response to it, they can point at my faithlessness so raw and lifeless that I have nothing more to say about God's joy in my life.

And the truth is any potential I have for transformation in me is Christ himself, none of it is me. And yet I don't receive it. Day in and day out I leave it there because I say Yes Christ, I believe in you, Yes Jesus, I trust in you with my WHOLE life, but right now, in this moment, I need ___ (this) to make me happy.

It makes me sick. I guess this is where I am.. On the edge of diving into the depth of my sinful nature.. where I will then repel downward into this lonely, painful place, until I have been broken down to where I can only see Christ.

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He will be my trampoline back up and out of my despair, and even still, knowing all of this, it breaks my heart that I can take the beauty of His grace, and accept that salvation for myself, what He did for me on the cross, and then turn that beauty into filth as I try and earn the rest of that righteousness with the way I follow Him and my behavior to constantly be proving my faith to myself, Him, and other people. Jesus says that my best attempt is like a filthy rag. Ouch.


So I guess the purpose of my writing is to make it known so that loneliness, something that Satan uses in me often by isolating and suppressing my emotions so that I feel like literally the only one going through this, wont be able to enslave me any deeper. I need to see these shattered, frustrated, and confused pieces of my life that are still walking in darkness so that I can begin to respond not simply by a 'right behavior' but by being truly compelled and consumed by a love much bigger than I ever could dream, and letting that fall afresh on my life, breaking me free of my chains, and transforming me.
The deeper I dive into the pit of my sin and need, the deeper love and electrifying grace I will find. I just pray I can be brave enough to surrender to it all, that I can have Him search all of me..

Please, make this a dialogue.
I need to see more clearly.