Free

I have been thinking about this subject for awhile.

God tells us that in our weakness He is strong. There are people who don't like me or think very highly of me because I have been honest about the ways in which I am weak. It is true that sometimes I am foolish, sometimes I am unreliable, sometimes I am immature, sometimes I am grumpy, sometimes I am selfish. We all are. Sometimes we are happy, sometimes we are kind, sometimes we are selfless. We are all imperfect, we are all weak, we are all the recipients of grace. So it's okay if people know both the good and the bad. If they are only friends with the tidy part of me then they are not really my friends. It's okay if they reject it too.

By a slow insidious process I begin to apply to myself many "should's" and "ought's". I also let other poeple and a cultural norm (though in this case it's a 'good Christian culture') apply many "should's" and "ought's" and before I know it my eyes are off Christ and placed squarely upon myself. It is not for me to attempt to make myself into the perfect Christian. If I look to Christ, He will grow me, for He does say, through the Bible, "Sarah, be kind. be honest, be loving." He also says "be weak, my grace is sufficient. be weak, in that my strength is perfected.". By looking to Him I can trust that He will make me the person He wants me to be for His glory - an odd conglomeration of weakness and grace. :-]

Don't be afraid, my friends, to share yourself with others. I'm not advocating a lack of discretion, but I am saying, do not close yourself off because you are afraid. People may think less of you (they should, in all fairness, think less of themselves if they would apply the same standard), people may appreciate you, people may place an ideal upon you that they think you should meet, people may find you refreshing, people may begin to confide in you their untidyness. In the end, it does not matter what they do. You'll be okay :-] You are His. If the world should crash tomorrow, if your parents suddenly disapproved, if your friends rejected you, if you lost everything you had, if you were hungry or poor or alone the rest of your life, you'd still be okay :-] You are His. Don’t wrap yourself up in anything else but Him. – never settle -