I grew up in the Christian Church and never thought I sinned. I was so motivated to be “good” and I was convinced I was a “good Christian.” But when I unexpectedly found myself confronted with all of my limits, my finitude, my smallness, neediness, and rottenness, I was ready to walk away from everything I believed and knew in my heart to be true.
Here I was, faced with my sinful nature for the first time after growing up in the Christian faith, and I didn’t know what to do.
This devastation held in tension with the harsh reality of living in a world so riddled with pain, destruction, loss, and deception, it is a miracle I’m still here.
Everything felt fraudulent and untrustworthy, and I didn’t know what to believe—but I also realized that, apart from Jesus as the Son of God, I didn’t really know anything.
I did know that the reality that I was not who and what I convinced myself to be was too devastating, and I was too angry to keep wanting to choose God because I felt He’d let me be a fraud for far too long.
To my surprise, it was through writing that He kept meeting me and leading me through the mazes, the edges, the fog, the deserts and dark nights; the depths of the sea of my faith, my hope, my doubt, and my grief, and taught me the slow beauty of becoming like Jesus; of being truly human again, the Imago Dei I was made to be.
The temptation to fall back to my beastly, fearful, cynical, self-righteous way is always crouching at my door. And the tension sometimes feels unbearable, and I feel too powerless.
So, I write. I struggle with God. And I find that I am empowered again by the Spirit of God to remain with Him, and to keep going, because I’ve not reached the end yet and I can still taste the faith, that piece of Eden lodged down deep in my belly that lures me back to the throne of the Ancient of Days where I find grace and all the love I could ever need.
We’ve been created, on purpose, with limitations and finitude and a child-like neediness that is chronic and deep within our souls, even our bodies.
I’ve come to realize that accepting this reality, rather than denying or repressing it, is the beginning of the journey to being reconciled with what it means to be human. Of coming home to my design.
And doing so means welcoming a lot of experiences and feelings I’d much rather avoid—grief, discomfort, loneliness, even joy, vitality, and liveliness. But I’ve found that it is only when I stop resisting what I am that I can offer it all to Jesus and let Him take me from glory to glory.
It is true that “His divine power has given us everything required for life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and goodness” (2 Peter 1:3 CSB).
Did you get that? His power; His own glory and goodness. Not yours. Not mine. Not anyone else’s. But the Spirit of the One who raised Christ from the dead (Romans 8:11)–He really is with us and in us. And it all comes by knowing Him.
I am far from being the kind of human I’d like to be. But I am on my way, only because God loved me in this way: that He sent His Son to die a shameful death, and be victoriously raised to life, so that I could be restored in honor to my rightful place as a co-heir with Christ, a partner with God, a daughter of the King of the Universe.
God’s design is exactly what I was made for.
Human reflects the struggle with God, the death of my false self, His mercy to resurrect the parts of myself I’ve sent into exile, and His generosity to reveal Himself to me again, and again, and again. It is all my humble attempt to help lead us back to our humanity and toward God’s design for us.
You’ll find short essays telling the story of what God has done, and you’ll find poems and prayers because this journey sometimes demands it be expressed through nothing else, for it is often too nuanced, too numinous, too sacred and weaved together by too much Divinity to be expressed through anything with prosaic structure.
We must come back with our feeble, fragile selves to the feet of the holy and perfect, compassionate God who can do it all, take our hand, be our refuge, heal our souls, and set our feet on a broad place again.
I am not me without God; I am but dust on my own.
How grateful I am to be reconciled with my Maker.
May you be met with gentleness as you bravely raise your hand for help and filled with courage to show up with all you’ve got—even when it’s with faith as small as a mustard seed. For our God is faithful and mighty to always come through.
Praise and thanks be to God.
Amen.
