If you want to know how I found Jesus, know this: He found me.
Sure, pre-Jesus, I was religious. I knew how to go to church well. I knew how to say prayers. I knew how to follow rules. I knew how to make sacrifices. What I didn’t know was, love so great it would send you down to your knees because you wanted to go there. Because it was your joy to fall down. No. I didn’t know that.
I only knew striving hard and working hard to earn favor that felt about as unreachable as a life that mattered. It all frustrated me so. The idea of figuring out how to prove I was a prized daughter. The unquenchable desire to be seen and the corresponding desire to do everything right. The endless guilt and self-contempt. I always felt busted; I knew he always knew I wasn’t worthy enough.
And, it was tiring. I wore my body out doing all this. My weight dropped like a rock, my stomach turned knots in the night and my mind swung wild circles in the fog it lived in. It’s called Anorexia.
That’s where I went. We all go somewhere. Without God we all go somewhere to escape the vicious thought: God might hate me. I went there.
It was painful. And, to add pain to this injury, the drinking didn’t help. I nearly hated myself.
Have you been there? Perhaps, you’re there now. Perhaps, you are trying to pretend you aren’t there, while everything in you – knows, you are there.
Do you feel the distance between you and God?
Do you sense the anger at yourself?
Do you feel the pull towards old addictions?
Do you try to meet all God’s expectations, but feel helpless to do it?
Today, I want you to know there is no shame. We tend to look at life as colors of black and white, good or bad, God or Godless. And, while, absolutely, truth is truth, often our own spiritual progression is not so easily delineated.
Faith is a journey; you are the sojourner. Beyond this, greater is a truthful heart to God, than a story contrived to the world. A fake.
God wants your truth. He wants your heart and he wants your truth. Will you bare it to him? Reveal it without shame? Let him unravel it?
That is what I did way back when (and I still do today). I called out to God. I said, “I don’t know what I am doing anymore. I don’t know who I am Jesus. Will you help me, save me?”
It’s a prayer we should use often; it works. God always shows up. God always saves. God’s love completely endures, no matter how many years past a vibrant faith you are.
You are never too lost to be found.
He found me.
So, no matter where you stand on the spiritual spectrum, consider this: God is ready to save you, today. Why not let him?
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It was like this post was written directly for me! Thank you Kelly! I have been a Christian for years but I too cried out to God just last week for help! I was exhausted, depressed and felt alone and very afraid. And God showed up! He always does.
If you feel exhausted, depressed, fear, alone get on your knees. God is already there to say “I’m here, I love you, you are not alone! We will get through it together!
Again, thank you Kelly for your transparency and faithfulness to share it so others may see a way out…