Submerged in grace.

Remember almost three months ago when we stood in front of God and all the precious people he has surrounded us with and vowed to give ourselves to each other, for better or worse, as long blood flows in our veins and oxygen fills our lungs?

Almost three months in and it feels like forever.

 Two and a half months in we've had a dozen arguments over my driving, walked hand in hand through moving, renovating a house, changing church, job and, well, being Mr and Mrs. We've shared the load of expectation and pressure, and although my phone is broken, my car wouldn't start and I poured boiling water down our not yet plumbed in sink, we still like each other. Well who'd of thought it! :)

All the above is true. The last 6 months of my life have been some of the sweetest and strangest I've ever know. Going through so much change has shaken me inside and out, and broht me face to face with who Rachel Margaret is, and you know what, so often I don't like what I see. I've had weeks where everything goes wrong. Seriously, day by day something new would come up. About two months in exhaustion hit us both, mine mostly emotional, Roy's from spending every waking moment leading up to our wedding making the bedroom of our house livable, and every moment since working on our kitchen. Add on to this a nice big package of lies freshly sent from the darkest place, and I disliked everything about myself. Confidence crumbling, I wondered who exactly I was.

I feel like I'm coming out of this season now, starting to feel at home in Cotehill, settling into a church filled with new friends and the promise of serving to come. I am finding my feet in my new jobs, both outside of the home and those inside. Our kitchen is almost complete, a total turn around from the newly plastered shell we returned to from our honeymoon. It's from this new vantage point that I see the lies and social norms I have built my identity around over the years.

A month or so ago Roy was trying to teach me to reverse into our drive. You have to be on a really specific angle, and turns out I wasn't getting it. It was late, we were both tired, and as I sat in the car leaving it half sticking out of the drive, I felt like a total failure. I said as much to Roy when we came in.

"I ca't do anything. I hate myself"

Just writing those words down makes me feel sick. I'm just not that kind of person. Sure, sometimes I don't feel good about myself, but I don't let myself dwell on it. Besides, they are just utterly false. I don't hate myself. I've always liked myself, right?

Wrong. Yes, I was a confident teenager, mainly because I was proud, and compared myself to others, coming off better in my imagination. I was mainly in high sets, I was naturally good at sport and I was strong willed and honest enough to speak up about what I thought was right, whatever that might cost. Of course, the knocks will come, and with each word of rejection, chips of your self worth fall away. Some people easily fall into the 'I hate myself' mantra, moping and finding their worth in people and things, I on the other hand bounced off each knock with a simple, I don't care, I know who I am, God made me good, I'm His, it doesn't matter what they say.

Truth, sure. But my attitude was to protect myself, and with each word I put on more and more of my confidence armor. Whether we tend towards self pity and complaining, or hiding our hurts under layers of confidence, we are all the same. Hurting, broken, relying on ourselves instead of what God says about us.

All the change I have experienced has stripped me of this comfortable identity and I have come face to face with the vulnerable shell I encase myself in on a daily basis. I see the cool, difficult to impress demeanor I put on all the time, and have to pray minute by minute for God to help me be gentle and soft, to let people see me and not the fake me I put on whenever I feel under scrutiny. I have prided myself on not caring what people think, but all the same, I am a people pleaser like everyone else, and although I'm strong enough to follow my convictions, I will walk all that road carrying a heavy load of other people's expectations and guilt.

So what am I trying to say?

I think I'm trying to say that this life of walking with Jesus has a cost. My brothers and sisters in other parts of the world feel it's physical weight trapping them at every corner. Perhaps it is not so easy to see here, but I firmly believe it does. As soon as we surrender our lives to God we are marked by the enemy. he knows there is nothing more dangerous to his cause then a ordinary sinner overtaken by Jesus Christ. We will face lies, persecution and every kind of trial, both physical and emotional. We come out the other side, but often with scars because we didn't trust our Father fully and we instead relied on our own tactics to survive.

 Maybe like me you are coming face to face with your sin and broken identity. Maybe you, like me, have spoken the truth of the Bible to feed your self worth, instead of truly wielding it's power in the battles you face. So what do we do? How do we break down our barriers and truly surrender to who God wants us to be?

We go to the cross. We kneel at it's foot and remind ourselves of the price he paid to buy us, cleanse us and call us His. We are broken again and we offer it as a sacrifice, knowing that the ever compassionate Father will pick us up, hold us close and pour out grace. Grace upon grace upon grace.

And then we go out into this world again. We go back to that beautiful book and really understand that we ARE created by God, that He DID know us in our mothers wombs, that we are, inside and out, FEARFULLY AND WONDERFULLY MADE. We don't say it because it makes us feel better, we say it because it's TRUTH. We look at others differently because those words apply to them too if only they could see it. We sing with joy because no matter what fight the enemy stirs up next, We are MORE THAN CONQUERORS through Christ Jesus, and actually, NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE for HIM.

You know what Rachel, you will fail. So what, we all do! But you know what also? You are right now, totally submerged in grace. While I was still a sinner, he transferred all my disgusting mess onto His own precious son, and when I realised that, He adopted me into his family, and wiped my slate clean, so that when I breathe my last, I will be with Him, forever.

So I urge you, my brothers and sisters, to come back to the cross. And when you go back into the world and start the work of digging out all those lies and replacing them with truth, and you get tired
as you face each day's battle, remember.

Because of Him, you have already won.