A culmination, of sorts.

Monday night seemed to be the culmination of a solid week of “bad days”, the last straw, if you will.  It’s been a particularly grumpy, chocolate craving week for me.  I've been quite the pouter, and I haven’t reacted very kindly when my three year old has tried to one up me in that department.  Putting it frankly, Mommy threw a tantrum.  How pitiful is that?

More often than I’d like to admit, I can be the emotional equivalent of what we, here in the south, call a “hot mess”…  an absolute mess, I tell you.  God bless any poor soul that has to endure a relationship with me. (Hi, Mom.)  I can’t imagine why anyone would stick around.  My emotions run rampant.  If they were put on a color wheel for a month, you’d see me jump from a week or so of cheerful yellow, happier than a pig in a pig pen, and then a quick trip to raging red, annoyed by anything and everything, straight down to a solid week of sulking blue that makes me feel like we would all be better off if I just pulled the covers over my head and sat this season out.
This chaos is nothing new to me, it has sort of been a way of life.  But, I think that this past year has been significant to me because I am starting to figure out that A:  “Houston, we have a problem”, and B: everyone I meet isn't crazy and unlovable, but boy, I am!  And last, but not least, C:  God made me, He knows who I am, He knows that I need repair, and He is STILL in love with me!  Imagine that.

A few weeks ago, I went through one of the toughest depression spells that I've experienced in quite some time.  It lasted for what seemed like forever, probably a solid three weeks of feeling like this world would just be better off without me.  House keeping took a back seat, I let the kids watch movies all day so that I could sleep as much as I could get away with, I ate beyond my heart’s content, and I didn't go to church for three Sundays in a row, convinced that people were most likely repulsed at the very sight of me, as if all of my life’s sins and hang-ups were written all over my forehead.  It’s been a while since I've reacted to a depression in that manner, but boy, was it intense!

At church, we are coming to the end of a study on the book of Revelation, and how majestic it has been!  I think it is the first time in my life that I have been able to look deep within the book of Revelation without fear and trembling.  On the contrary, I listened, as it was read aloud this past Sunday, with much delight.  I became truly overwhelmed, in the greatest sense of the word.  Growing up in a church that taught with little to no doctrinal value left me unsure of myself, even more unsure of God, and quite frankly, panicked out of my mind that I wasn't doing this “Christian thing” right, and thus, I was doomed.  In a church that does not believe in eternal security, that once you are saved, that is it, a done deal, no one can separate you from Christ…  what hope is there for any member of that church that believes such things?  (I have no desire to spark a theological debate here, and if you are tempted to argue this reasoning or that, please don’t, because you would be missing the point.)  But, as a young person, wavering in a desire to know Christ that is being starved by unbiblical “truths”, I can tell you that it was an absolute nightmare trying to measure up to what I thought a Christian should be.  I would spend night after night, wide-eyed, terrified to sleep for fear that if I should die before I wake, my soul, the Lord would not take.  I was convinced that my merits weren't enough.  And in that regard, I was right.  What a pleasing thing it was to learn, so many years later, that God’s grace is nothing to be bought, but something to be savored…  as it is a gift, a luxury, one that leaves me, the most undeserving, so grateful for a God that looks at me, and though I am a sinner, He sees me as holy and pure in light of his Son’s precious blood.  To know that when I come before my Heavenly Father, I do not come bearing a bag of tokens based on merit, just hoping that I have enough to win His grace, but rather I am coming clothed in the righteousness bestowed upon me by my great love, my Savior, Jesus Christ.

Knowing what I now know, that if we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive our sins, it is such a blessed thing to hear the promises laid out in Revelation 21:3-4... “And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”

I couldn't tell you half of the time why I feel the way that I feel, as if my heart is turning inside of my chest, a raging torrent of emotion.  But, I can tell you this…  my heart rejoices in leaps and bounds at those words.  To know that not only is there an end, but a culmination…  a culmination of not only my bad days, but also of all of the pain, the sorrow, the loss…  the joy, the elation, the gladness… everything I have ever been through, every rotten choice that I have ever made (and repented of and hopefully grown from), every step that I have ever taken, that I am taking now, and that I will take in the future, the battles raging that are not of this world are all leading to one great VICTORY in Him.  No height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, not even throwing a tantrum that makes you feel like you could easily win the “Worst Mommy of the Year” award…  not a single one of our failures or short-comings will ever be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.  As David Platt so eloquently put it,

“Our.  God.  Wins.”