He met Me

Have you ever seen God show up in such a beautiful way that you can't help but tear up and thank Him? I have. It's even more beautiful when someone captures the difference on photo and in the midst of you wondering, "How did I get here?" you realize how sovereign the God we serve truly is. You see His love for those who don't even know how to love themselves. And let me tell you: it's beautiful.

If I'm honest, this picture makes me tear up a bit, for so many reasons.

First, the picture on the left was when I was in the darkest point in my life. At that point, I hated myself more than I ever thought someone could hate anything. I hated what I looked like, what I was like and what I had done, and in that hatred I did everything I could do to change who God had made me to be. Second, the picture on the left was my second to last year of camp. At that point, I didn't think God was going to do anything spectacular in my life: let alone, bring be back to the place this picture was taken, to show me that He had a plan even four years before He told me. I was lost and broken, hanging onto fading hopes that would never stand firm.

Now, fast forward four years ahead. Here I am. Rather, here I still am.

This twenty year old who used to cry herself to sleep at night at sixteen and wonder how God was going to use her is being used. For His glory and for His kingdom. And more than that, He brought her back to the place where that second-to-last camp picture was taken and replaced that fake smile with pure joy. Not so I could say she did it in her own strength, but so that she could now use it to tell young girls who were just like her where she found her hope. Her solid hope and firm foundation.

In the midst of self-hatred, eating disorders, self-harm, the loss of my dad and many other broken pieces He met me. He plucked me out and chose me as His daughter. Not because He had to, but because He loved me so much that He wanted to use me as His vessel, His disciple, and His love-letter-reminder. My storm was great, but my God was greater. My love was low, but His devotion was high. He showed me that He is the God of redemption and come-back, not because I was strong, but because He was mighty, faithful and never stopped pursing me.

Let me repeat that second sentence: He. Never. Stopped. Pursuing. Me. 

If you get nothing else from this blog get this; you don't need to clean yourselves up to come before God. He knows where you have been, and where you will go and yet He still choses you. So, the question isn't if He will chose you in your mess, but if you will chose Him in your mess.

How great is our God. Amen.

Amen.


By Your Side - Tenth Avenue North
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CdjRmM0Q0qs


Psalm 139:1-4, 16-18
"You have searched me, Lord, and You know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; You perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; You are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue You, Lord, know it completely... all the days ordained for me were written in Your book before one of them came to be. How precious to me are Your thoughts, God! How vast is the sum of them! Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand— when I awake, I am still with You."