In All Honesty

This is a conversation shared with a co-worker (Grandma) and her granddaughter after ‘catching’ the granddaughter doing something “naughty” with another child.

Grandma: “Whose idea was it to do this?”

Granddaughter: “I don’t know…”

Grandma: “I’m going to ask you both one more time: Whose idea was it to do this?”

Granddaughter: (bursting into tears) “It was my brain, grandma. My brain comes up with these things and I do them. I can’t help it, I’m sorry!”

This is probably very much like some of my conversations with God. I can laugh at this story as I hear my friend tell it, but I can also see so much of myself in this granddaughter’s confession.

Sometimes I feel like such a fraud. Many days I thank GOD that only HE can see the “real Kim”. The not so pretty, not so encouraging, not so sweet woman ~ who comes to His throne (loaded down) daily to seek His forgiveness. The woman who comes to Him pleading with Him that it was “her brain” that made her do or say the things she did.

Sometimes I wonder if my ‘transformation in Christ’ was all a farce. Sometimes I have thoughts and feelings that are as far from who I want to be as the east is from the west. Sometimes I feel this rage boiling in me just looking for a place to pour out the overspill. Even worse, sometimes I do things and the pride wells up in me and it overcomes my flesh in a real, physical way. Most of the time I keep it tucked away in the bag I carry.

Sometimes I’m looking for any scapegoat to take the brunt of my own bad choices. Sometimes I put on the plastic smile to cover the snarling beast within. Sometimes that same smile covers the incredible pain I feel and helps cover the tears that are flowing in my heart. Sometimes I feel so out of control, so “EMOTIONAL”, that I can hardly face the day. Most of the time I keep this, too, tucked away in the bag I carry.

Sometimes I can’t even bring myself to speak about all of this because I just “KNOW” that no one could possibly relate and they would “judge me” for these thoughts and feelings, all inside this bag I carry.

I would no longer be the strong, invincible person I believe I appear to be. I would have to be honest….I would have to say: “I don’t know why bad things happen to good people. I don’t know why good things happen for BAD people. I don’t know and I’m pissed at God because I can’t understand this kind of ‘justice’.”

There I said it…I get pissed at God. I get pissed because He says He understands, but it FEELS like He could NEVER understand. He says His load is light…but I see NO place to lay my load down. He says put it at the foot of the cross…but it’s crowded over there and this stuff…my stuff…I’ve had it for so long I don’t know if I CAN lay it down and if I do it could be the source of ridicule and judgment if someone peaked inside. He doesn’t MAKE me lay it down…He invites me to GIVE it all to Him. Still I hesitate…I may NEED this bag I carry.

He says: “I love you so much and this love is the only bridge you need to me.”

He doesn’t say what I expect Him to say about my returning to this very place again. He has seen me here so often and yet His smile is the same and His love is the same and His touch is the same as it was all the other times I came to this place.

I expect Him to say: “What are YOU doing back again, and with that same OLD bag?”

Instead He says: “Come my child, come!” and His arms are open wide and I move slowly towards Him (testing these words) until I can fall into “Daddy’s” arms once again.

I don’t know why I can’t lay it all down. I don’t really understand why I would prefer to carry this bag around with me. I do unload some of it and it does get smaller and it does get lighter and some things don’t seem so necessary to carry…so I put them down as I age. Sometimes, others ask me to carry things for them…I used to say “of course I’ll carry it, I am strong, I am BIG and INVINCIBLE!”

Now I know…I cannot carry anything for anyone. I can’t even carry my own things. I pray that one day I can leave the whole thing at His cross and I can walk away with a lighter step. I can move forward and not run back or even turn back to see the “junk” I’ve left behind.

He has taken my “junk” (the stuff I’ve left) and He has dealt with it. He has redeemed me once again from my own undoing. I pray I won’t have to come back to this very place. Yet something tells me, in time, I’ll be back and He’ll be the same as He is everyday. He’ll be the same as He was today.