Again and again I am reminded just how great the measure of grace that I need to sustain me is. How costly a price, and how often I chose to see the failings of my flesh instead of trusting the sufficiency of the cross to heal and transform me.
I am struggling. So many factors if I look through natural eyes promise despair. It has been nearly a year that I have received the diagnosis that I have PCOS, with insulin resistance, it’s the reason for many secondary health issues that seemed unrelated and now I understand that there is something beneath the surface of my skin, something unseen that is causing many of the other factors. We have suffered a series of financial setbacks including the death of a vehicle, the flooding of a basement and the loss of a job. Externally things seem disparaging. Internally I admit it seems that way as well.
I knew that I was being called into a time of refining, of sifting. There are things about following Jesus that I absolutely love, to watch the face of my children as they sing with hearts laid bare to Jesus. To see the peace that rests on the face of a friend when she speaks of the Lord and how he loves her despite the fact that her dreams that were once so vivid seem so hopeless now. The dying to self it is the thing that is not so pleasant, and it is the thing I must do. It’s true that the Bible is a mirror; it’s true it’s many things, a sword and our revelation of Jesus himself. There are times when I look into the mirror and don’t like what I see. The evidence of my fallen flesh and how dirty my feet have become wondering around in this muddy world. I have given far too much weight to my flesh and circumstances. I have given over the hope I had in Jesus to hope in the temporary fixes the world had promised. The narrow road seems littered with the idols of my life I continue to cast aside. Those things I trusted to fulfill and sustain me, though in the end they were empty promises. I have placed my trust in my own abilities, the words of others and the things I longed to possess. No more.
I hear the words of a poem I memorized long ago:“Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”
When I begin to look upon the ways I am to respond to this life, though unclear at times and tumultuous at others I am reminded that it is the light the world and its prince want to kill in those of us that follow Jesus. He tempts us to shelter the light, and provoke each of us to draw the basket masks we all wear over our heads and hide. Its purpose is to diminish that which Jesus surrendered himself to allow us. When we chose to cast them aside, all the ways we wish to present ourselves we can shine yes, but we are also confronted with the flaws we do not wish to reveal. It is the flesh we war against, our sin and doubt drawing us away from the vulnerability necessary to continue on and toward the hidden place where we cannot be seen by anyone for who and what we truly are. I am reminded what is at stake when I surrender to my wants, my temporary desires, it is the light that through me might shine. Though in unmasking myself I reveal my vast imperfections I will.
I have no power that He has not given; I have no grace that comes not from Him. I, like the hearts of my children now cry out, because he has given me the ability to do so thorough the gift of His Spirit. I call on the name of Jesus, not to save me for He already has, but to sanctify me and cleanse me with his Words. My weakness revealed as sin, my struggling revealed as doubt, and my hope revealed in Christ alone.
I chose now to walk again, no longer to stumble. It is time to stand up, to walk on, to follow His leading, though it may cost me my wants, though it may cost me my friends, though it may cost me my life, or the life I thought I should have. I will press on.
