lately i have forgotten the sweetness of being confident in God's love for me. he feels distant, unsympathetic, impatient, contemptuous. i feel like i'm drowning in my anger and that there's no way a holy God would dare reach through the layers of sticky and thick hatred to save me. i am beyond saving and left for dead. i have forgotten the crux of the gospel that embodied God's love and grace in the life, death, and resurrection of jesus who willingly died by the hammers and nails of our sin. i've forgotten the sound of jesus crying out that "it is done," and that guilt and shame and chains are no more. i don't know how to speak truth to myself but apparently my nineteen year old self can. today i finally filled the last page of my fifth journal and can move on to my sixth (?) journal and when i grabbed my fourth journal from freshman/sophomore year of college and randomly flipped to a page, here is what it said:
"there is something off when i pray, 'lord, i just want to please you.' when i am burdened with some kind of heavy desire to please god, what i don't realize is that i already am the purposed object of his concentrated love and pursuance...he sees me in the future, right now, as his perfect bride, ready for eternal fellowship with him. no pain, no tears, no sorrow. he sees me right now, at the spot he intentionally placed me in, after guiding me here and refining me thus far. he sees every tear and heartache and does not look at me in contempt. he sees my every weakness and my past, present, future sins--but in dying on the cross, he declared conclusively...that not only has my lifetime of sin been acknowledged in its full ugliness, but it has also been thoroughly eclipsed and overcome (not merely excused as to diminish its offense before God) by the lashes on jesus' back, the thorns upon his head, the blood in his lungs." -december 23, 2012
"there is something off when i pray, 'lord, i just want to please you.' when i am burdened with some kind of heavy desire to please god, what i don't realize is that i already am the purposed object of his concentrated love and pursuance...he sees me in the future, right now, as his perfect bride, ready for eternal fellowship with him. no pain, no tears, no sorrow. he sees me right now, at the spot he intentionally placed me in, after guiding me here and refining me thus far. he sees every tear and heartache and does not look at me in contempt. he sees my every weakness and my past, present, future sins--but in dying on the cross, he declared conclusively...that not only has my lifetime of sin been acknowledged in its full ugliness, but it has also been thoroughly eclipsed and overcome (not merely excused as to diminish its offense before God) by the lashes on jesus' back, the thorns upon his head, the blood in his lungs." -december 23, 2012
thanks, nineteen year old eunice
sidenotes;
is there something significant in the last entry of my fifth journal being about this particular phonecall idk