awake & free: Meg's Story

I used to think that stories that didn’t involve dramatic life change (in the external) or cheerful endings following dark beginnings were frankly, quite boring.

God’s grace is so radical, so life-altering, and we are so far removed from Him {{before Jesus}} that any story of a man or a woman entering into a relationship with the Heavenly Father is, in fact,

I am a perfectionist at heart.

In my first-child-ness, in my personality, I want to be made much of for getting things right. I want to do something well and take it to someone and say “Look! See what I did!” and hear them sing my praises.

When I was younger that translated to being the perfect child, the perfect friend, the perfect student. The perfect handwriter. Anything. Perfect. And as I grew up going to church with my family every week, that also translated to the perfect Christian.

I remember for the first time hearing that Jesus, the very Son of God, wanted a relationship with ME! I remember hearing about how crazy and different and perfect Jesus was as I remember distinctly thinking, “Man, I want to follow that guy!” He was cool. I remember laying my life before Him and saying, Jesus, I’m yours.

And that’s beautiful. It was a “moment” in a sense. It was me giving up everything and asking Jesus to come. To change my life. To be Lord over all that was me.

I went through the phases – the Christian bumper stickers and the WWJD bracelets and, unfortunately, the judgmental, self-righteousness.

I didn’t drink with my friends or sleep around or cuss when I got mad. In God’s grace, I did experience Him and I did experience real faith. I experienced His goodness and I was passionate about others encountering Him. I wanted people of all different backgrounds to hear the gospel and I fell in love with mission work – locally and internationally.

But I had this sneaking suspicion that if anyone really heard my thoughts or if anyone really saw me alone, they’d see who I really was deep down. The woman I was totally ashamed of.

I couldn’t let them in there. They couldn’t see that. I had people to please. And I also had God. I was supposed to be good for Him, too. I wanted Him to look on me and smile. So I continued my life-long quest to look good on the outside and hide the dark places, the places of shame and the places of you’re-not-supposed-to-do-those-things and worked my best to make the outside shiny.

In college, I desired to grow more and so for the first time, I began to regularly read my Bible.

Truth nearly J U M P E D off the page to me!

God’s grace, His goodness, His justice, His character!

My sin, my lack, my need, my punishment.

And JESUS! Jesus, the very Person I had wholeheartedly wanted to follow years before – I read what He actually did and what He actually said and I was taken by Him.

And on top of that, I was experiencing real community.

I heard real people tell real stories of how Jesus had changed their lives. And I saw other people respect them for it.

The gospel became alive and real to me.

G O D became alive and real to me.

I began to see my external exterior cracking as God came more deeply into my life. I began to see how I couldn’t hold it all together anymore. I began to admit things that I had always hidden from everyone around me {{because what if they saw that I wasn’t in fact A Good Christian like I was claiming I was?}}.

And I began to see that, while I had been a Christian for years at this point, I had largely missed the point.

When I chose to put aside my perfectionism to see Jesus’ perfection displayed in my messy life, when I saw that it wasn’t about me and how good I was making myself for God even after I was a Christian, I began to come to know and understand the love that God had for me. I began to unravel the reality of his scandal, the reality of the gospel.

I began to see that, really: It’s not about what I do to perform for God. It’s about what He’s done for me.

God loved US so much that in spite of our sin He sent His son Jesus. To live the life that we were called to live and to die the death that we deserved to pay the penalty for our sin. He took the weight of all my shame, all the things I had kept hidden, all my performance and all the things that I would continually bring to Him in order to please Him, and He bled on the cross in order that I might be free.

In order that I might know God.

Didn’t He see how messed up I was deep down, even under my cover?

{{And wasn’t that the point??}}

The more I grow and understand what it actually looks like to be a Christian woman, one who loves God and who rests in Him, the more I’m shaken by that truth. It’s a crazy thing, the gospel. It’s a crazy way of loving. But I cling to His love now more than ever. He loves me no more or no less than he ever has. In Him, I am enough.