Masks and Scars

We are broken people. Even as Believers, we are broken. Our lives are filled with deception, sorrow, confusion. Our souls are desperate, so desperate for something - love, acceptance, beauty, perfection. I see these many struggles to fake strength, to act like everything is fine, to justify ourselves, to prove that our choices are good, to promote one's own things as best and right and true. Even when we know Jesus, even we know the truth that sets us free, we keep struggling to prove ourselves  over and over. We keep looking, we keep trying for perfection. We are defensive. We are proud. We prove our point. We put ourselves first, our own interests first. We are broken.

I don't say these things in a judgemental way. I've heard so many things lately, but God has laid them on my heart in a new way, opening my ears to hear beyond the words to the heart yearning behind them. We long for something more - we were intended to long for something more, but how many times, even when we know the Truth, do we continue walking as though we are still searching? We are so broken and desperate.

 The thing that we hunger for is completion.  We are not complete until we not only believe and accept that we cannot do it on our own, that perfect holy Jesus had to take our place, that He conquered death and prepared a way for us, but until we know these things, until we know without a doubt that there is absolutely no other way. I am not enough. Nothing I do is enough. Yet I keep pretending. We want acceptance, we want understanding, we want love. There is only One who satisfies.

This journey that He leads us on is messy. (I watched a video in class the other day that showed a potter. Making something out of clay is dirty work. The potter's hands are covered in goop. He continually shapes the clay, and then he smashes it down and forms it again. The potter goes through this process over and over. This video was such a beautiful picture of how God works in our lives.) The journey that He leads us on can seem complicated, it can hurt sometimes, we can be confused, we can wonder and think we are wandering aimlessly, it forces us to make hard decisions. We walk in the valley of the shadow of death. We see the "easier" path alongside us. But God did not call me to easy. I will be broken, time and again. I will be hurt and confused and I will try to hide myself from everyone else. I will try to pretend I am the "perfect Christian," but in truth, there is no such thing (what freedom there is in that! There is no such thing as the perfect Christian!). I will be scarred, but these scars are beautiful and they show that I am loved, that I am being made new.