For the past few years the Lord in His grace and mercy has been working on my life in one specific area....well, actually in several areas but it often comes back to this one.
I grew up in a terribly legalistic church where your behavior mattered more than your soul, although no one ever said that out loud it was inferred with all the scowls and disapproving looks or the blatant rebukes from the youth pastor at the pulpit which could only have been meant for no one other than me and everyone knew it. Our church was more 'works based' than any catholic church in our neighborhood. ANYWHOOOOOOOO!!!
I am 38 years old. I have almost 9 years of marriage under my belt (the belt to which I am referring is a sleek ultra thin black one that you wear with a light weight cream cashmere button down sweater and a dark pencil skirt....and the outfit is completely about the belt, well and of course the shoes). I have four kids and a dog. I home school our children, and I love to sing at church.
Now with that past....you go to heaven if your perfect, and failing miserably when I was young to live up to those requirements, let's just say perfection makes it a little difficult to have much success in life at all. My expectations of perfection have been place, unwelcomed, on everyone in my life and they are expected to meet them. When they don't it's hell and when I don't meet my expectations, which again is perfection, it's hell! So basically we have a lot of hell going on.
Finally God grace......
So now that I have all these holy disruptions going on in my life the reality of perfection is slipping away quicker and quicker. I wish right now I could interject the beauty of the christian life and trusting Christ, or at least say that it is a joyful goodbye, but sadly it's not. It has been such a battle for me to let go of some of these 'musts'! I must have perfect children. I must have a perfect marriage, I must have a perfect house, I must I must I must I must!!!
ENOUGH!
[Beauty of Christ interjection now]
Through much sadness and grief which turned into growing in wisdom, the Lord has finally allowed me to cut myself a little slack. I'm just a sinner, but just a sinner covered in the blood of the all the Perfection I need. I will never NOT sin. I will be bugged at Sean for many things. I will get angry with my kids, and yes, possibly yell at them! I may be a week behind on laundry. But I have an Advocate on my side. I am not called to do it all. I am called to love Him, my neighbor, and to follow Him ~ do His commands, and if I don't....HE FORGIVES. Cutting a little slack has helped me go a greater distance in my faith and in my love for Him and my family and my friends. I feel the Lord has blessed me with such freedom in this realization. In this world we will have troubles we will sin, but take heart for HE has overcome this world.
I John 2.1
My little children, I am writing these thing to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.
So all of this to say that today I ran a mile, then walked a minute, ran another mile, and walked a minute and then ran another mile! I actually did 3.03 miles today. If you walk a little (cut yourself some slack) you will find you can achieve a greater distance. Excellent advice from two veteran runners and beautifully freeing advice for the Christian life. Don't get hung up on perfection! Walk a little, you will go farther.
What an incredible post.
ReplyDeletethat was really beautiful. thank you for encouraging me this morning. i love you.
ReplyDeleteAWESOME!!! Thank you for writing this, it is SO good to be reminded of the blood of Christ covering me.
ReplyDelete(And that outfit with the belt sounds killer.) ;-)
Julie, when I started blogging, I had hoped to use blogging as a way to help me sort through the obvious dilemma of running longer distances and being away from the family longer. I wanted to publicly explore whether ultra running could be redemptive.
ReplyDeleteI'm not certain that that has been accomplished. Most of the things I set out to do end up going in a different direction than I intended. It has happened, however, that I have been delightfully and terriffyedly (that's probably not a word) surprised by where I find myself.
However, I encountered a rough patch in the late fall of 2009 and into 2010 in which blogging surprisingly helped me. In fact, while writing one particular blog, I realized that one of the reasons I run is to "deal with the demons." Now, that was a little bit of poetic license, both theologically and actually, but I did realize, by blogging, that while running, I sort through things. Sounds kind of obvious, huh? But I hadn't realized it until then.
I hope that this particular post was something like that for you. It certainly encouraged me in a number of things, particularly in regard to being honest with failings. Hopefully more people will find your blog and be encouraged as well. I look with anticipation to reading more.
Thanks for this J. Praise God that our identity does not end with "Sinner," but "Righteous in Christ." Glad to hear you're cutting yourself some slack on the running. Keep rockin it! (And remember, I'll be right behind you on a segway with an airhorn. Oh yes. Motivation, my friend.)
ReplyDeleteloved reading this. keep the thoughts coming...
ReplyDelete