I have been following Jesus for seven years now.
Seven wonderful, painful, thrilling, joyous, and difficult years. Deciding to answer ‘yes’ to the call meant taking up a cross of suffering in one hand and the crown of daughterhood in the other.
It meant becoming exposed and naked, the grimmest corners of my soul no longer in hiding. It meant walking to the furious light of God where every warm ray burned away what was once trying to destroy me.
It meant making mistakes that affected not just me, but those I love. It meant receiving deep, true, healing forgiveness from others even when the scars I inflicted on them are still fresh.
It meant wrestling through the darkness of my past and the ways it has dimmed the truth of God’s goodness. It meant finding him in those places I feared most to go and discovering his wondrous love waiting for me.
It meant jumping head first into risky situations and getting my ass kicked by the reality of life. It meant finding success and victory just in obedience, not in the outcome of my efforts.
It meant surrendering every bit of myself, all of my hopes and dreams and desires in this life to One I Could Not See, But Knew. It meant having a life more beautiful, adventurous and wonderful than I could have imagined.
It meant sleepless nights, endless tears, and a depth of pain I could not have foreseen or believed I could survive. It meant waking up with the morning light pouring in, and by some miracle, finding remarkable Joy oozing through my pores.
I would not have known the radiating beauty and joy of life, if it were not for the pain.
I am older now. Seven years has started to etch itself onto my face. I have been familiar with pain and with joy and with brokenness and with wholeness and with hope and with disappointment. I have come through enough with Jesus to say with complete trust that all things work together for the good of those who love and follow him. Things that should have hardened my heart and destroyed the pieces of me throbbing with life have, in the end, held no power over me. In fact, those things were used to fertilize the soil from which even deeper, more miraculous life burst forth and began to bloom in vivid color.
I stand in the shadow of the Cross, and I can say with confidence: nothing can come against the inexplainable love that God has for me. No situation, no heartbreak, no mistake, and no failure... No one. No. Not even myself.
Following Jesus is not a promise for a happy life. It is a promise for abundant life. It is a beautiful, tragic mosaic of pain and sadness and suffering and tears and joy and wonder and hope and remarkable, unwavering Love.
I am older now. Seven years of following my King have gone by. And I rest. I rest in the unshakable love of God. I may change, I move and shift and rock with the waves of my life and my soul, but Jesus stands for me... a Solid Rock of steadfast, immovable love and peace. After all that I have done and continue to do, his grace has never once failed me. What love is this? What Love is this that reaches out again and again, that waits at His door to see my form walking home again and again? What Love is this that doesn't even ask me to explain why I left in the first place, before ushering me back into His home? Back into His arms?
Maybe it is just coming with getting older, and maybe it is going through some of life’s unavoidable difficulty - but for the first time in my life, I stand with complete abandon to the will of God and whisper to him, “You are no longer some abstract void in my consciousness. You are my Friend. I know You, and I know Your love. Though death may face me and life may rip at me and reality may try to crush me - I fear not. For You have always been with me. And You will never leave.”
I feel peace the world does not give. Because I have nothing to fear. I have been brought through enough to be able to point to the Cross and know that because of this, there is nothing that can destroy me. There is nothing that can determine who I am or my value or my worth apart from the One for whom I was made and made in His likeness at that. There is no weapon of man or powers at be that can come against me - for I am my Father's girl. I am Beloved by the Lover himself. For no reason I can give, for nothing that I can offer, for no word that I can say - except that Love can do nothing and be nothing, but Love. Hallelujah.
I sit with Him as the turmoil and difficult of life swirl around me, and I fall asleep in His arms. I rest. I follow Jesus, and I am His daughter, and I rest in His unwavering love.
Amen.
