Ache

All night this thought was perculating in my head, "I am the sum of failing and of grace" 

It's starting to sink into my stiff heart, that thought. The heart that secretly likes to believe the lie that my culture whispers to the likes of me. "You are what you are and where you are in life because of you." "You worked hard, you made a few good, responsible, mature decisions and this is why life is working out."

This pull yourself up by your bootstraps thought process and God only helps those that help themselves mentality is woven into my very being-and severing it is painful.

All I am is a gift. I am where I am has nothing to do with me. NOTHING.

Did I have a hand in being born? Did I decided that I wanted to be born into the richest country in history of this world? Did I choose my gifts? Did I have any part in choosing to be born into the family I am in? Did I decide what sequence my DNA would take? Did I conclude that I was not to be born with any physical disabilities?

 

The answer that echos through my heart and reverberates on my soul is a resounding, "No."

 

I had no part in the story that was woven that has brought me to this point.

 

I could have been born in a landfill in Lema, Peru, I could have been born to parents who abandon me simply because I am a girl, I could have been born with AIDS on to the red dirt in Africa.

 

Life is a gift. Every breath that enters my lungs, every beat of my heart, it's all a gift.

 

I twist the ring on my finger and I am angry and I ache.

 

I ache because I so easily forget this. I often get angry at the apathy and indifference that pervades this America brand of Christianity, but the truth is, I am apathetic and indifferent. I love my comfort more than I love Christ most of the time. The materlism that I hate, I also love. I want my life here to be safe and comfortable. I yearn for security and acceptance. I want don't want people to hate me. I'd rather have the applause of my peers than of the heavens.

 

I want to fight the darkness in the world but I find the darkness is in me. To fight the darkness is to fight myself. I am Eustace clothed in a dragon's skin fearing the pain it will take to shed it.

 

Even writing this I wonder if I'll ever publicly post it because lets just be honest, I'd rather look like I always have it together. I don't want to admit that my family has real problems; that I have real problems.

 

I want my life to look as bright and sunshiney as a Normal Rockwell painting. Yet I know deep down in my soul that there is glory in the struggle. There is a beauty in redemption. I love the conflict in a story, the happily ever after is sweeter after the fight. Lovely would still be lovely even if ugly didn't exist, but there is something that resonates about beauty born from ashes.

 

Yet, I balk when the conflict enters my life. I'd rather erase all the dark lines I don't understand and all the seemingly needless pain and heartache that exists in the world. I see through a glass darkly and I don't like it. I long for home and it's not here yet and it makes me ache.