The Beginning

I started to write this and decided at once that there was no reason for me to tell this story. It is personal, it is private, and there are parts I wish I could bury from the world for forever. But the Psalms tell us over and over again to declare what the Lord has done for us. For me, that means I have to let you see where I started. Shall the dust praise thee? Shall it declare thy truth?...Thou hast turned for me my mourning into dancing…to the end that my glory may sing praise to thee, and not be silent.(Psalms30:9, 11-12)


It is easy, so easy, to say we love God. To mean it in our hearts, to claim it in the streets, and to reject it in our actions. I did. I was saved when I was four years old; I have never gotten over His sacrifice and never experienced a phase where I was too cool for God. Most of us don’t. My problem came when I felt safest and where I felt surest: romance. I owned every book on Christian dating (and walking away from dating), held mile-high standards for personal purity; I felt invincible.

It’s easy to feel invincible when you have never been tried.

When I was twenty, God brought a precious man into my life. He was a gift. When I looked at him, every year of waiting became worth it, melting away under the power of his smile. We were meant for each other, and when we were together, the world had no challenge too rough for us to weather. I loved him with all the saved-up passion of twenty years of waiting, and he loved me right back.

It was the simplest thing that shifted our relationship from the glowing blush of pure first love to something far from innocent. We went on a date with a big group from our college, where we were encouraged to hold hands. That little gesture was incredibly sweet to me; it was the first time I touched a man with love. It was also far more dangerous than I knew. That simple touch unlocked a passion we could not quell, and what was a flickering flame became a raging fire that eventually devoured our relationship. Before we knew the danger, we had given away far more of ourselves than God intended, and then covered that shame with deceit. Our purity was shattered and the lie was soon after.

He giveth more grace(James4:6).

I’ve learned more about the grace of God and the healing of his redemption in the last three months than I ever understood before. 

Happily Ever Until

We blow it in life, and the relationship is over. It is a given assumption that either party has the option of walking away at any time when the offense record grows too fast, too long, or too unprecedented…even “too annoying.” Our culture has instinctively built escape hatches into every relationship. For marriage, there’s divorce; for work, a neatly typed resignation letter; for dating, the classic “I don’t have peace…” Even my hairspray assures me, “No, really. You spray it on your hair. You know, sooner or later you’re going to have to start trusting again.” Experience has taught us to build walls, to build escape hatches, to keep ourselves safe, because sooner or later everyone walks away.

Why should God be any different?

Love. So hard to define that beautiful little word. Is it a feeling that lasts for several years and then fizzles away? magnetic chemistry between two people? roses and chocolate on Valentine’s Day? It’s time to take it back to the original definition: [Love] suffereth long…beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. [Love] never faileth.(I Corinthians 13:4-8) For God so loved the world…so loved me…so loved us. Paul says that for this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ…that [we], being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; and to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge.(Ephesians 3:14, 17-19) No escape hatch. No point of no return. Love that never fails.

Baby Steps

Sometimes I feel like a baby who is just learning how to walk. I take a step, and another faltering little step, and then I tumble down in a heap. I may have learned to walk on two feet without falling (most of the time!), but learning to walk by faith is a whole different ball game. I take a step, and another faltering little step of faith, and then I tumble down in a heap, tripped up by my unbelief.
But funny thing about babies…no matter how many times they fall, they never give up. Every one of them will eventually put one foot in front of another and not fall down. The reason they succeed is that they will not quit trying. (illustration from Harris, Do Hard Things)

I have to admit, when I mess up for the hundredth time in a week, I definitely don’t feel like chanting “Never, never, never give up” with Winston Churchill. I feel like going for broke; I’ve already blown it anyway. Baby steps, big tumbles. I cry with Paul for that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not, but what I hate, that I do…(Romans 7:15) I strive to honor God with my life, but over and over again I fail. It feels like a losing battle. My testimony is ruined; how can He possibly use me? His answer is not what I am expecting. For a just man falleth seven times, and riseth up again.(Proverbs 24:16)

It would be foolish to give up on a baby the first time it tumbled down in a heap. Yet we are so ready to give up on ourselves. We buy the lie that God can’t use us once we’ve fallen. God does not expect us not to fall…He expects us to get back up.