about me

Once upon a time, I was a little girl madly in love with Jesus. I loved everything I knew about Him, I highlighted my Bible, and wrote my favorite scriptures in the back pages, went to VBS and Sunday School and church camp. I asked my pastor hard questions and sat patiently listening to his wise answers. I worshiped the Most High, and I meant it. I said "yes" to Him, and I meant it.  I was a daughter relating to a Good Daddy.

And then, one day, I demanded my inheritance. My heart had grown cold since the passing of my dad. I was a teenager looking into the far country, and I liked what I saw. Maybe that is the place I could drown out the sadness. Maybe that is where I would find the salve for the brokenness. Maybe that is where the growing void in my heart would be filled. 

I tried it all. I did what was necessary to fit into the crowd, and I did it with joy and abandon. I tried what was being offered to try. I became addicted to substances that did everything in their power to steal the hope and the future He had promised. I perverted the holy, developed my own theology, and thoroughly turned my back on Jesus.

My sins are many. And messy. And ugly. 

Yet... that is exactly the place my Savior met me all over again. As I sat there in a pig sty of my own making, knee deep in mud and yuck, hopeless and starving for something I couldn't even put a name to... Jesus climbed into the mud with me.  A Savior who dirtied His own robes, so that He could offer me clean ones. Looking in His eyes, dripping with love and mercy and grace, I saw hope. Hope for something different, something more.  And I took my first feeble steps toward Home. It has been a long and stumbling journey, but somewhere along the way... I fell in love.

Hopelessly, recklessly in love.  As He walked with me along this path, dusting me off when I fell, encouraging me when I grew tired, my heart was awakened to the overwhelming, radical, crazy love that Jesus has for me... and I found myself falling head over heels in love with Him, with this Bridegroom God who chose a sinner like me and called her Beloved

Now, I find myself in this position of encouraging others in their own walks with the Lord. Helping them to recognize their identity in Him- valued, cherished, wanted, worthy. Waking an apathetic church up to His delight in them and the incredible call on each of our lives. Leading little girls into understanding there is more to this life than the world would have them believe, tired wives into believing happily ever after can really happen for them and their spouse, and women at the jail into knowing there is more to who they are than what has been printed in the paper. That His grace really is BIG ENOUGH. 

It is the most incredible thing ever... that Jesus could take a broken vessel like me and use it to His glory.  

Forever thankful for that Savior and his soiled robe. The way He sat in my sin and carried it's weight... and called me beautiful. Arms wide open on that cross, He cried out "Becky, you are worth this"... and I am overcome. He carried me from mud to mercy. And I am undone.

The offer is the same for each of us.

From mud to mercy. From sin to forgiveness. From yuck to Glory. From death to life. 

I have not yet arrived... I am still sorting things out, or better, letting Him sort things out of me. I am still yielding to my own decrease so that I can know His increase in me. I am still learning how to say "yes" to His call. I am still learning how to wait and surrender and GO. But I rest confident that He is with me every step of the way, showing me how He does it, teaching me the unforced rhythms of grace... indeed, teaching me how to live freely and lightly in Him

Won't you join us on the journey? We'd love to have you... 

1 comment:

tammy said...

Beautiful words...from a beautiful one...