free.

for a while now, I've prayed to feel free. I'm not even sure what from, but I don't feel like I'm living freely, in God's grace and love.

if I could just feel free... if I just understood God's love... if I just lived a certain way... then maybe I'd feel free.

with teaching, there's a lot of pressure to meet certain standards and plan and make sure your kids are on track. i think i started looking at my relationship with Christ that way, and giving myself too much responsibility/credit/pressure. I wanted to earn joy and salvation, or maybe manipulate God into giving it to me.

the problem is, over the last 6 months or so, the Lord has allowed everything in my life to show me all my crap. literally, i've seen more of my crap and weaknesses and sin and just gross-ness through every area of my life then i ever have. i've felt unworthy, ugly, un-wanted, criticized, fake, challenged in my walk. if you ever want to see your weaknesses, just start teaching. :) not just that, but in other things i've seen the utter depth of my sin.

so i started thinking God was about to "hit" me, show me His wrath. after all, I don't deserve anything good. and I can say that more sincerely than any other time in my life. I deserve nothing but discipline and some "i-told-you-so's" from Him. at least that's what I would do to someone that acted like me.

But... yesterday, I understood Christ's death more than I ever had. I had this picture of me, curling up on the floor and about to receive punishment for my sin. And all the sudden Christ stepped in. He's already taken punishment for my sin. My shame. He lived a perfect life so that I don't have to, because I can't. I am now considered righteous because of Christ.

How cool!! I praise God that He uses really hard and dry times to show me more of Him. It hurts. Really bad. But it's so good. Many more steps to come, but I praise God He continues to reveal the Gospel to me in newer and deeper ways, and free me from myself.

"Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man against whom the Lord counts no iniquity." Psalm 32:1