Call It Grace

Usually I don't listen to K-Love. Long story short, I have an issue sometimes with the theology behind the songs that are played and things that are said. I usually prefer to make my own playlists, and lately have been playing the crap out of Amanda Cook's new album (check it out).

The other day, however, I happened to turn on K-LOVE, and Unspoken's new song, "Call It Grace" came on. And I thought it was beautiful. In fact, I've got it on repeat blaring through my headphones as I type this.

I think it's amazing how God uses music to speak to us during certain times in our lives. For me at this time in my life, it's hard to desire to do anything except sleep. Lately I have felt beyond guilty because I don't even desire to spend time alone in Scripture. I'm tired. I'm tired of trying medications that don't work and visits to the doctor. I miss running and the mental endurance I once had that helped me run over 26 miles. I miss my old body. I'm tired of not desiring to go to social gatherings. I'm tired of being less-than-pleasant to my amazing husband (who made me an awesome breakfast this morning and continues to serve me throughout this whole mess).

My whole life, I've been all about following rules, to the point that I was made fun of for it. My mom calls it "Oldest Child Syndrome." I was the epitome of a teacher's pet and I was devastated when I disappointed someone. When I became a Christian at 16, I promised God that I would try hard to follow the rules he had set for me in his Word. I didn't want to upset him. I had this image in my mind that if I didn't spend at least such-and-such amount of time with him a day, then my salvation was lost.

This mindset has stayed with me until very recently, and I think this song has finally helped break the ice around my heart, destroying the rules that I thought God had set, but that in reality I had set for myself - impossible expectations that I held myself and others to. Lately I have been thinking of the Jesus who held people and healed them; people who were dirty (physically, mentally, and spiritually); people who were blind and deaf and lame and uncared for.

Sometimes, because of the sickness that God has allowed into my life, I feel like he will condemn me because I cannot find the energy to seek Him or read His Word every day or even every week. But then, in my mind's eye, I see Him someday coming to me, maybe at the gates of heaven, taking my face in his wonderful hands, and healing ME, just like he healed so many in the stories I've read.

Who knows. Maybe I won't battle depression and anxiety forever. Maybe I'll finally find something that works for me. But even if I don't, and even if He doesn't heal me here on earth, He is good. He has blessed my husband with a new job. He has blessed me with friends who struggle greatly with depression, anxiety, self-harm, and OCD to walk with me and for me to walk with them. He has increased my desire to rest, which if you ask my husband, I am horrible at. He has increased my desire to rest in Him, even when I don't have the energy to seek Him (which makes no sense, I know). He has (slowly) decreased my desire to be the perfectionist teacher who never screws up and changing me into the teacher who sits with my students who hate themselves and harm themselves and turn to drugs - to talk with them a little less about Spanish and a little more about their lives. He has opened my eyes to the pain that is so evident in my school building every day.

It is my prayer that even in my disobedience, he still uses me. I think I am finally beginning to understand the meaning of the word "grace." It's a deep word, full of things I have yet to learn. But maybe I'm getting there.

One day, he will heal us.

"It's the light that pierces through you to the darkest hidden place. It knows your deepest secrets, but it never looks away...Some may call it foolish and impossible, but for every heart it rescues it's a miracle. It's nothing less than scandalous, that Jesus took our place. Just call it what it is, call it grace."