You were dead.
All of us were.
You were saved.
(Based on Ephesians 2:1-7)
The Week of Guided Prayer ended but the work continues. So much was revealed in those short seven days that it could take months to absorb it all. This is the beauty of being a writer. I can read and reread those journal pages. Nothing is lost to time or faulty memory.
The reading fromEphesians brought me a further realization of MYplace in God’s family. In my novel, Wholly Jane, I write about wanting to be “nobody’, which is very comfortable thing to be. What I’m finding now is that being nobody isn’t enough. I do want to be somebody. In fact, I want very much to be somebody special. I’ve wasted a fair amount time in life trying to gain that position of somebody special in the eyes of others. It’s only now, after learning the hard way, that I’ve discovered I don’t need that kind of acceptance from others. That’s not to say I don’t need other people. Rather that I’m comfortable in my own skin and in my own soul, whether anyone recognizes me or not. That acceptance doesn’t come from without. It can only come from within and only with the grace of God.
After spending two days reflecting on the understanding of God as MY God, I read Ephesians. I had the same experience of words jumping off the page at me. “You were dead. All of us were. You were saved.” Reflecting on this further, I took it in as a reassurance that yes, I’d screwed up. Everyone screws up. God saved me anyway. While my first reaction was, “God’s a dummy”, my second one was, “Wow, he must really love me to put up with me.”
Screwing up isn’t something to be avoided at all costs. It’s to be embraced. It’s a chance to learn from my mistakes. It’s a chance to experience redemption. A child doesn’t learn to walk without falling down repeatedly. So why should I expect to learn to walk my faith journey without falling?
My Morning Coffee With My God 