HOLY WEEK

I woke up this morning haunted by my own inadequacy. All the things I should have done, ought to do, want to accomplish— and haven’t.

Curled up in the corner of my oversized chair I stared into the still-dark woods sipping tea and swallowing poison words.

Words like…

I am not enough

not good enough,

not capable enough,

not motivated enough,

not organized enough. 

True words… and yet not the whole story.  

These are the echoes of the Accuser’s truth-that-is-not-the-whole-truth. The one who writes a convincing biography of me and all my less-than’s.

The one who wants me to believe the lies that resonate somewhere deep in the hidden, hurting depths because if I do believe he wins.

And you hear it too.

I know you do. You’re a subscriber, just like me, to that hellish library where all your mistakes are categorized and catalogued, footnoted and never forgotten.

This morning just as the sun’s emergence began to dissipate the dark, my Savior began to dissipate the lies-that-sound-so-true.

You are who I created you to be. Not like her… nor him.  I did not craft you into the kind of person who is lauded and applauded in today’s version of heroics.

I made you different because I like different. I like you. 

And these words I think you, too, need to hear:

I need you… as you are

because… without you

My Kingdom would be a little less… beautiful.

On the last days of His life, Jesus looked into the faces of His people and He saw their beauty. He saw your beauty. And mine.

And He shuddered at the enemy’s plan to forever uglify us, His created ones. The overarching plan of the one who wants me— and you— to believe that our not-enoughness disqualifies us from usefulness.

And this morning as I wrestled— without even knowing I was— with that enemy whose version of my story shrivels my soul… the Father whispered words of worth to me.

Why?  because…

He sees your beauty.

And mine.

Shocking, isn’t it? And yet it’s true— the truest truth.  The truth that led Him all the way to the Cross.

For this reason, I bow my knees before the Father,

from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name,

that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man:

so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love,

may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth,

and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God.

Ephesians 3v14-19

NASB

Praying that you… and I… would experience the love of Christ in real life this week.

From my heart,

Diane

(image by Bethany Small)