So I am sitting here reflecting on the past few months since GYC and feel grey with a tinge of shame. I have been so distracted with anything and everything but my relationship with God. I still have a desire to do missions and love my Father with all my heart but I don’t give Him my time or a significant amount of my efforts. It seems like once I am done with my busy weekday schedule all I want to do is kick back and watch a movie and usually not a Godly one. I have been listening to music I shouldn’t be lately as opposed to the light spiritual Christian fare I always usually have on, and I can feel the clear effects of the increased distance between me and my Creator. It kind of scares me to be honest. It is painfully clear just how easy it is to drift away from the shore…it really is like floating on the ocean. If you aren’t making a pointed effort to pay attention you look up one moment and have to ask yourself how you got so far away from the beach. Never once did I intend to distance myself or fall back into old traps but nonetheless I have. A bad feeling comes with realizing your own failures and seeing how far you are from your ideal. Spiritual warfare is not a joke. It is a constant struggle between what I know I should be doing and the things I know I have no business doing, controlling thoughts, doing God’s work, following health principles. I am in a constant self inflicted mini mental guilt trip about where I should be devoting my time yet with no consistent improvement. I really want to allow God to remedy this within me once and for all. I want to be my best through Him and leave the trash behind. I want to be fully prepared for the mission field before I make it there and ready day by day for His coming. This is a tall order as I have learned…I am all too human and all too distractible. The simple aspects of female life in 2013 according to the world’s standards are enough of a distraction by themselves. Fashion, beauty envy, vanity, sexual urges, entertainment and media, selfishness…everything that comes along with being a woman and a human in this sin cursed world. It is so hard to strike the balance between high Christian standards, having an enjoyable life, and living in the world we do. By the grace of God I am trying, I need prayer and plenty of patience on the part of my Heavenly Father which praise the Lord is one of His specialties. I would like to recommit myself to Him now as I write. Turn from my downward spiral and try anew. I want to hold His hand and walk toward my end goal and I praise God it isn’t too late to grab on.
In the mood I am in I just want to reflect for one moment on how ridiculously awe inspiring my God is. He is more massive than a million universes, more beautiful than the finest images thriving genius imaginations can fabricate, more powerful than all the forces of the cosmos combined, yet sweeter than any mother, more loving than the deepest lover, more forgiving than anyone deserves, more patient than our tiny minds can understand, and more giving than anyone we can try and compare Him to. Absolutely perfect, unscathed, omnipresent, omnipotent, eternal, and gargantuan in intellect, compassion, mercy, and creativity. So much so that my reasoning begins to rip apart at the seams when I try to process Him within the shallow kiddie pool of signals and information that is my flawed human mind. All I can do when I try to jam His mysteries in for the sake of full understanding is fall flat on my face into my pillow, admit defeat, and smile teary eyed at the fact that ALL OF THAT, all the aforementioned glory, the biggest and most overwhelming being I can ever encounter, loves ME. A backsliding, selfish, inconsistent, sin smeared little peon that shouldn’t even have a place in His presence. And the kicker is not only does He love me…but deeply! Relentlessly! Unconditionally! He loves me no more and no less no matter what I do. He allowed a crowd of dirty hateful masochists to nail Him in all of His innocence and love to wood and leave Him thirsty, bleeding, and in agony for dead so the cycle could be broken…for me. So that even though the prince of this world, Satan, has a go at me and I would be fair game for him to destroy, the supernatural blood covering me from head to toe is my eternal loophole, my armor, the ticket out of the outcome I rightfully deserve because I brought it upon myself over and over even while knowing better. My Father turns and sees His Son’s blood pleading my case…and the case is closed. I am His. I can be such an idiot sometimes and have a long list of regrets in life. But praise my God in Heaven I am His idiot! And in Him can be made wise! In Him I can be perfect. Halleluiah and praise be to His Holy Name! Right now in the midst of feeling horrible for the way I have been acting lately, I am crying tears of joy. He loves me…HE loves me…He loves ME! It makes no sense but I am so blessed that it is reality. Thank you Lord. Fill me up with your Spirit, renew me, forgive me for my twisted humanity, and save me into your kingdom. And thank you for taking me back again, tonight, right now, and always. Amen.
Pulled From Ashes 
This is a beautiful, vulnerable, deeply passionate, awe inspiring post. I don’t know if I’ve heard a better description in an attempt to embody who HE is. Which of course still falls short because as you put it, our “kiddie pool” minds can’t even begin to imagine His true beauty, wisdom, creativity, compassion, love, and patience. A light that beings who some humans even wrongfully worship like angels, stay with head bowed in His grace. The light of all of existence, Whose very presence is much more than our human eyes can stand a glimpse of. Who had the creativity and precision to make each atom like a miniature solar system, each cell like a miniature universe, each snowflake unique from the next and yet as complex as any machine that man has come to build. To make life forms perform in a way where they can support each others needs simply by existing. Plants live on CO2 and give off oxygen, as we live on oxygen and exhale CO2. I believe that was also a lesson to us as people, for how our relationships with others should be. Supporting and strengthening each other. How blessed are we that the King and Creator of everything, loves each of us enough to bare the weight of everyone’s eternal death and world of sins and would do it all for just you or just me. As someone who suffered from depression, and being suicidal as a child and young teen, coming to know God for myself gave me the strength to know that I’d never think of doing that again. I mean if He, in all of his infinite awesomeness could love me unconditionally, I had to be worth more than I can ever imagine. Not because of who I am, but because of I’m His. I thank and love Him eternally for loving me and believing in me long before I could ever began loving or believing in myself. I can do nothing without Him, and all things through Him. We all fail miserably, endlessly, in epic proportions. He always picks us back up. When we only see one set of footprints in the sand, it was because he carries us and never gives up. It’s never too late until it is. I believe wholeheartedly that God has awesome plans for you, and that through Him you will accomplish amazing things. Don’t feel alone, we’re all still failing but we have Him so we can’t go wrong as long as we stay close to Him. I’m nothing but dirt lol, but He picks me up and dusts me off. He puts His arms around me and cloaked in His righteousness I am made into so much more. Thank you for sharing this with the world Eden. You are truly inspiring.