OCTOBER 30 | DEAR ANNA | A LESSON IN GRACE
3:33 AM
Dear Anna,
I’m leaving in a minute to go to a cute cafe to incentivize myself to get all my work done. Even though I love the cafes here, none are as great as that cafe we went to in the middle of a snowstorm in Colorado. But I figured before I left that I would write you a letter about what the Lord has been teaching me.
This morning I was sitting in the guest bedroom prayer journaling and reading my Bible (lately I’ve been sleeping in there while it is still warmish, because I love waking up with sunlight on my face and a breeze. I know, I know). I accidentally overslept today until 9:30, went to go workout, took a shower and am just getting my day started. Honestly, I used to feel such guilt for that. I couldn’t give myself grace because I overslept, or my workout wasn’t as good as I was hoping. I expected a perfection of myself that was not humanly attainable. These past two months I’ve realized that everyone is kind of a mess, we all just try to cover it up. Even as I’m writing this, there’s a million things I need to do.
The past few years it seems like the Lord has one attribute He just hammers into me. Two years ago He taught me about love when I thought I was unlovable, last year He taught me about joy when I was stressed beyond belief. This year He is teaching my perfectionistic self about grace. I don’t know how I functioned in a grace-filled religion under legalism up to this point. Like really, it doesn’t make any sense. I used to think Christ’s sacrifice only guaranteed me a place in Heaven, but now I know that the true gift is Himself. The gift of Salvation is not a “get-out-of-hell-free” card, although we are promised Heaven. He is not a means - He is the end.
He has given us the ultimate love and peace in this life and more so in the life to come. Ultimate love and peace when we are breaking under the weight of life. Grace when we screw up really bad.
How freeing it has been when I used to see myself as a failure of my Father’s perfect standards, to realize He sees me untainted. The rags I used to wear have been traded for the purest white. His perfect Son’s blood is on my life, so my scarlet sins are now pure. He doesn’t see my sins when He sees me - He sees the perfection of His Son.
Hebrews 9:11-14 talks about this:
“[Christ] entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption. For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.”
“As far as the east is from the west, so far does He remove our transgressions from us…” (Psalm 103:12)
I love the story of Mary and Martha, because I hear Jesus telling me the same thing. He said, “Martha, Martha,” the Lord replied, “you are worried and upset about many things. But only one thing is necessary.”
When I start to worry about the my future, “[Olivia, Olivia,] you are worried and upset about many things. But only one thing is necessary.”
When I realize I made a selfish decision, “[Olivia, Olivia,] you are worried and upset about many things. But only one thing is necessary.”
When I have food poisoning and have to help lead worship (that really happened yesterday), “[Olivia, Olivia,] you are worried and upset about many things. But only one thing is necessary.”
The only thing that is necessary is Him. And so I pray everyday that He will give me the ability to “grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge.”
In His presence there is fullness of joy. And today I am just so thankful that He called us worthy, when we were the farthest thing from it.
Anyways, that is what the Lord has been teaching me lately. I miss you more and more everyday. No one can match your sarcasm or wittiness.
Xoxo,
Livi
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