you're my boy, Paul.

I've been reading Romans over the past few days.  So far, it has mostly been Paul's discourse on the nature of humans (sin) and the nature of righteousness (through faith in Jesus' death & resurrection)  It's always good to rehearse these theological truths, but during chapter seven I started feeling pretty crappy about myself.  It resonates so deeply with me when I read words like those in verse 18 that say,  "I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out."  At this point in the letter, our hope in Jesus had already been explained multiple times, but here our sinful nature seem so powerful!

"What a wretched man I am!  Who will rescue me from this body of death?"  (7:24)

Exactly what I'm saying!  Whew--thanks, Paul.  I'm glad I wasn't the only one feeling crappy here.  But what do we do?  He continues,

"Thanks be to God--through Jesus Christ our Lord!"  (7:25)

Yes.

The kind of "yes" when something is so relieving--so true!--that you feel like you could just fall down upon it with all of your weight, and find rest.  Reaching the shore after boating in a storm.  No more waves, no more insecurity, no more fear--just rock solid stability.  Immovability.  Breathing freely, deeply.

When I take a good, hard look at my sin, it's scary--but that's when the textbook knowledge about the Gospel becomes real.  I keep talking about wanting to "turn the corner," from dwelling in my sinfulness, toward grasping the Gospel deeply.  Paul is helping me get there.  Thanks be to God for using Paul to write these words, because they're finally making the long, hard voyage from my head to my heart.  I've known them, but now I'm knowing them.

"But now a righteousness from God, apart from the law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify.  This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe.  There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.  God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood..."
Romans 3:21-25

Yes.

Desperately wanting to be myself

It's so great to see old friends.  It's even better to know that I can be myself.

I get so caught up sometimes in trying to be the person that I assume people want me to be, that I miss out on a big fact of life:  people want you to be yourself.  That's what I want in other people, so why is it so hard for me to do it in my own life?

I remember back to my second semester of college, when this was a big struggle for me.  It was the end of my freshman year, and I was getting ready for a big transition (as if freshman year isn't transition enough).  I had been invited to work at a summer camp, and I was filled with a mix of nerves and huge excitement.  Four years removed, I can say that this was one of the best decisions I ever made, but at the time it was a big deal to make this commitment.

I'm from the mountains--this camp was on the coast.
I'm a people-person--I only knew one person working at this camp (I had only heard two people even mention it in my life).
I know nothing about boats--this was a sailing camp.

In the midst of all this, do you know what my biggest prayer was? I desperately wanted to be able to be myself.  I wasn't sure exactly what this looked like, but I felt like it was something along the lines of goofy, outgoing and confident.

I didn't find the answer that summer, and I still don't have it.  I can tell you that I've spent the past few months taking an honest look at myself, and I've come to a pretty stark conclusion.  I'm pretty bad, all-through, when left to my own nature.  It hasn't exactly been a healthy state of self-image during this time, but I feel like I'm finally turning the corner toward understanding and "getting" God's grace more and more each day.  It has been a real answer to prayer to experience it in different ways.  Basically, you and I naturally suck, but God loved us so much that He couldn't stand by without changing that fact.

This means that I'm accepting help, charity, welfare--but it's beautiful.  It's making me come alive, and it's so refreshing.  Amazing grace.  I'm starting to view that phrase as less and less of a cliche.  I pray for the day when you and I can humbly accept and rejoice in this truth together.

There's so much more that I want to write!  I've already written and erased twice as much that's written here, so this is probably a good place to stop.  As always, thanks for reading.  See you soon, friends--and hopefully as a humble, real version of myself :)