Confessions of a Child©

When I read about the disciples I don't feel so abnormal. They walked with Jesus for 3 years in the flesh, yet sometimes they were really clueless. One day they were debating who was the greatest among them. Jesus' response is classic. "Unless you become like a little child you cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven." His words take me back to the early years of my children.

My children wanted protection and guidance. They took my extended hand when it was offered.

They knew they didn't have all the answers. They were inquisitive. They wanted to be taught.

They didn't have their own provision. They came to us to be taken care of.

They didn't try to figure out their lives. They needed guidance to tell them where to go, what to do. They trusted the one who guided them.

When they were in pain, in need, in fear, afraid of the dark, they cried out. They were humble.

They weren't ashamed to come as they were to climb up my lap. They didn't question whether I wanted them near, they just came. They loved to be loved. They loved to love.

They wore no masks. They played no roles, they simply were who they were. They knew their place with me.

They believed. They trusted.

I see it so clearly now that I've lived it so wrongly. It's not just about salvation. It's about my identity. Unless I become like a child, I will never fully enter into the kingdom of Christ which now dwells in me.

At 23, I walked through the door of salvation, with the heart of a child. Immediately I began to live as an adult. I took care of myself. I didn't have a clue how to need. I leaned on my own understanding. The "shoulds" of the law captured my heart and life became about me and what I had to do to be right and pleasing to him. I began to try and sanctify myself by trying to make my "old man" better. I lived from the outside in.

I put on my masks to cover my shame. I played my roles, the ones that gave me some sense of value and fulfilled expectations. I protected myself. I trusted myself. Before I knew it I had forgotten what it looked like to enter in as a child. I quenched the very kingdom of heaven that made it's home in me, yet I didn't have a clue.

At 52 years of age, Jesus is bringing me back around. I am learning how to become a child again.

I continue to come back to this thought. Jesus said He had to leave in order for something better to come. He ascended into heaven. His Holy Spirit descended upon the earth. No longer would I have to experience Him from the outside, He would come to my inside. He would tell me who He knows me to be. He would teach me, counsel me, guide me into truth, leading me through the paths of life. After all He said He leads the blind on the unfamiliar path.

To inherit the kingdom is to live Christ in me. To live Christ in me, warrants the heart of a child that trusts out of a desire to be loved. He beckons me to come out from underneath my masks and be real before Him and others. He invites me to learn how to need again as He waits to take care of me.

Trust is the key that opens that door. Without it I will never believe. Jesus is the way, the truth, the life. He is the way that leads me into the truth that gives me life.

I'm coming back around now to where I once started. I'm learning to trust, really trust. I long to be loved. I long to give love. I have no resources of my own. I need and I need desperately. I have no role to play, no ministry to fulfill. I don't need them anymore. I am learning how to be who I am in the moments of each day with a Spirit who inhabits me.

He has made me new. I am learning what that looks like, living from the inside out with the One who knows the path of life. In this magical place I am rediscovering the kingdom of heaven, Christ in me, is the hope of glory.

©copyrighted: 2010; Julie L. Todd

The Embrace of Grace©

At the beginning of March, David and I were gifted two nights stay in a beautiful mountain town. The occasion was our 27th anniversary. The timing couldn’t have been better.

God had been calling new things into our lives more intently since the beginning of the year. A deeper excavation of our hearts has been His agenda. Things that have been hidden away are being brought into our eyes’ sight. He’s faithfully exposing those places where we continue to live by our own efforts. It’s a painful process sometimes seeing the flesh up close and personal. But the fruit that comes makes it worth the pruner’s shears.

The more we embrace this unbelievable grace the more the shame we've lived under is being made known. In the process the expectations and requirements we have placed on each other are slowly beginning to fade away. It's a domino effect, after all. When we begin to find what we need in Jesus, we don't put the pressure on another to deliver.

For most of our years together we have not lived that. Paths of destruction have been sown in our lives trickling into our marriage as we have lived under our blankets of shame. There are ruins from the years of trying to cover ourselves to protect our broken places. There is wreckage from the years of trying to be good enough to attain righteousness.

As we headed to our getaway we chose to leave the past and all it’s expectations and requirements behind. There was no agenda. We took our masks off. As we lived in the moments we followed our hearts, giving and receiving love. Something deeper began to happen in that place. We were reminded afresh of the beauty of our lives joined together as one. It happens when the heart leads the way. It happens when we come as we are, leaving our facades behind.

So much of this life parallels between the physical and spiritual that oftentimes I am stunned when the pictures begin to connect in my mind.

I said "I do" to Jesus 30 years ago.

Jesus invited me into a love relationship. I was His bride, He was my groom. I pledged my life to His. But because of my own shame, I put on my masks. I couldn't see what He saw. I tried to make who I was better. Instead of receiving love I began to try and fulfill assumed expectations. I embraced self-effort instead of grace. My felt insecurities became imposed on relationships around me. Things became desperately lost from where they were meant to be; and then He came for me.

Jesus allured me away with Him. He began to invite me to leave the past with all it’s expectations behind. He invited me to come as I am to live in the moments with Him. He told me He would live His life through me, that we would face my broken places together.

He is removing the rags of shame that I have covered myself with. He is wooing me to live as one who is loved. As a result my masks are finding their way into the fire that burns away the chaff. They are no longer needed. I am known, seen, adored just as I am.

The ruins that were created are being rebuilt right before my eyes as I dare to believe what God says is the truest thing about me. I am the righteousness of Christ. There is no need to prove anything ever again. It was proven the day Jesus conquered death. Shame has been removed forever.

He invites me to walk in the moments with Him trusting that He will show me what it looks like to live in this new nature.

This love, this relentless love is allowing me to see that grace covered all the bases so that I would not need to. The beauty of my heart is being released as I embrace myself as He knows me to be. And in that place, that amazing place I am beginning to believe that I am adored by the One who is love.

©copyrighted: 2010 Julie L. Todd

As I was editing this post, this song came on, how appropriate. Enjoy!