Low on the Go!

grace and work.

i lean against the door. i am nine. i beg and i plead for her to come out. i plead and i plead and i plead. i am so tired. i sink to the floor, my ear still pressed against the door. i've done a grave mistake, so i keep apologizing. Her silence fills me with guilt, and i plead and i plead and i plead. i beg her to let me in. i beg her to come out. i won't do it anymore. i am alone. She eventually comes out, but she is cold towards me. For the rest of the day, i say i am sorry over and over again. Later on, before bed, she sits down on my bed and tells me that it was for my own good that she was angry at me. We are okay again, but i am exhausted from apologizing and from the emotional toll of the day.

i'm learning so much about grace these days. Three weeks ago, i met up with a friend who said that when he sees me, all he sees is work. My friend on the other hand, is always reminding me of grace. When you know him, you can tell he is someone who is full of grace. It made me cry, what he said. But i brushed off the tears and changed the subject. i don't want to be known as someone who works, but rather, someone who lives out of the outflow of Christ's love.

If you were to open up my prayer journals, you'd notice that all my prayer journals start with, "LORD, I am so sorry..." And while confession has it's place in our relationship with God, this is different. It's as though I am a little kid again, and begging my mom to come out and let me be with her. Everything I do isn't because of grace, it's because i'm scared that if i don't work, if i don't say i'm sorry enough, if i don't do enough, God will leave me.

When i came to Christ in high school, a part of the decision process was that i realized i couldn't measure up to the standard of perfection. However, after receiving Christ, it was as though my heart, below my conscious thought, was saying,"Now you really should be able to live up to this, Lydia." Everything i do hasn't been because of my love for Jesus. It's been because that same fear of rejection that existed before i knew Christ still exists in my heart today. It's as though i feel as though what i do will earn me something, put others into debt to respond in the same way, will ensure that i belong or be loved.
The life i live is not a life of grace. It's a life of work. A life of work out of the wrong motivation.

For the past few months, i've been searching for a coffee shop to call my own. A place to become a regular. i don't know, there's something comforting about knowing there's a place to go to where you can sit in the same chair and stare out the same window, week after week. My searching felt really futile, even though i'd walk around day after day. i gave up. Today, i found two really cute coffee places (well, one of them is more of a rice pudding place), and i wasn't even looking. i know it seems silly, but to me, it was as though God was saying, "Give up trying, Lydia. The blessings are all there. I'm here. I'm not leaving. I'll take you where you need to go."

To be honest, i see the sin of performance orientation in my life more and more as the days go by. i'm scared, because it's a root that as wrapped itself so intricately and so tightly around my life. i don't know how change will happen. Working for love is so connected to who i am, and my heart has long been trained to strive for the wrong reasons, i don't even know if i truly understand what grace is.

Letting go will be a moment by moment thing. i know i won't change overnight. But someday, i hope that when my friend sees me, he won't see work and striving. i hope that he'll see a servant heart, motivated by grace.