What is grace and how do we reach it? How do we uncover the truth hidden deeply in our souls? I’ve found it takes one fear at a time, one layer at a time.
Portland, Oregon.
You are a mix of hole-in-the-wall restaurants, aesthetically pleasing coffee shops, dirty streets and cloudy skies. Turn each corner, and there’s something new. Most of the expensive looking stores did not match the types of people roaming the streets. A lady sits on the street side, selling beautiful art to feed her family. Groups of homeless gather in the middle of the sidewalk.
I’ve seen places like this before, but Portland, your personality is unique. I have never felt so much sadness in a place that looks so happy. If you were a person, I would describe you as the person who looks joyful, and yet is still searching for what their joy should be in. Is it the clubs and bars on one street? The old church with the stain glass windows next to it? The colorful window shops, the designer clothes? There is so much in-between here, so much searching. Longing, waiting, hoping. I feel all this in myself as much as I do everywhere else. I have never felt so much joy and yet so much sadness… I feel as if I am constantly struggling between knowing the weight of my own sin and the depth of God’s grace.
In the midst of my confusion and hurt from the lies that I’ve been fighting recently, I made a note in my phone filled with verses on the attributes of God and what his grace is like. One of my favorites is Hebrews 4:14-16:
“Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has gone through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are–yet was without sin. Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”
Christ sympathizes with us: our temptations, the weight of the sin so cluttered in this world. And yet, he was without sin. He gives us so much grace, so much love. How could this be? I want to be basking in this, the reality that I am loved by Christ in an unbelievable way. Even in my continual sin, which is revealed to me more and more every day. Even when my guilt threatens to take my smile and my peace, to leave me feeling hopeless and empty. Even when I refuse God and momentarily take my own wants as the better option.
I am forgiven, I am free, and I am here today. Unlike the city of Portland I feel myself peel away the layers of confusion in my heart and head, and open them up to the world. This is how I breathe, now. Raw, real, open, and searching for grace in every way possible.
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