alive.

i think i figured it out...

driving home from a roadtrip to bwood, i had a lot of time to think.

i've been feeling this need to be better...emotionally, physically, even spiritually, to please people. and honestly, it gets really exhausting.

there's always that question in the back of my mind...that "what if..?"

i'm a huge people-pleaser, and though it's not necessarily a bad thing, it sometimes tends to get in the way of my relationship with the only one who i truly need and desire to please, above everything else.

oh, what a sinful heart i have.

i feel so frustrated and clumsy when i constantly slip back into this thinking that i need to be pleasing
someone other than Christ.

while i realized this not-so-pretty idea inside, i also realized how absolutely incredible it is to be loved by a God who isn't always waiting for me to get "better", or change my heart before i can be loved by him.

he forgives. just like he always does.

and he never ceases to wipe my tearstained face clean, and dust off my weary heart.
i am made clean. once again.
i feel alive.

hallelujah.


he loves me for ME. 
not for what i have done, or what i will become.
whoa.

how beautiful is this God we serve?

"but the question to precede all others, which finally determines the course of our lives is, what do i really want? was it to love what God commands, in the words of the collect, and to desire what he promises? did i want what i wanted, or did i want what he wanted, no matter what it might cost?" - elisabeth elliot

love to all.