I wake up with a start, then turn to look at the clock.
3:49am lights up the dark.
I decide to get up and go to the bathroom because I have the bladder of a 3-year-old, and this is what I do.
When I get back to bed, I lie down and close my eyes. But in the 90 seconds, I’ve been awake, my mind is off to the races, mentally rolodexing through the many things I’ve done wrong or gotten wrong during various times of my life. This has been my middle-of-the-night routine for a while now, and I don’t know if it’s because of perimenopause or my own nature that’s prone to dwell on things. Either way, when I start thinking of all my real and perceived past mistakes, it causes my heart to sink to my ankles with the same ol’, same ol’ message: You’ll always be the girl who messes things up — who IS a mess.
So, I do what every sleep expert says I shouldn’t do and grab my phone as a distraction. I watch a few Beverly Hills, 90210 clips because I’m someone who finds comfort in shows from the 1900’s.
But then I decide that listening to a devotional on the Dwell app is a better choice. While the narrator’s slow, steady voice reading Scripture calms my heart rate and centers my thoughts on Christ, it takes me a good half hour to fall back to sleep.
In the morning, my husband, David, comments that he could tell I didn’t sleep very well last night. He asks if anything is wrong, and I immediately start crying. (Can I blame the fact that I cry so easily these days on perimenopause too?)
As he hugs me, I talk into his shoulder, “Well, I guess I’ve just been plagued by this overwhelming thought lately that keeps me awake.”
He responds, “What thought is that?”
I wipe my nose and look up at him, “That I mess things up too much, and that’s the end of the story.”
David draws his head back, “I know you know it doesn’t work that way.”
I reply, “I know that in my head, but not in my heart.”
David answers, “Well, it’s not true for you or anyone. God’s grace is higher and deeper than our mistakes.”
He’s right, of course. But old habits die hard.
Sometime during my teen years, I overheard my dad on the phone. The person on the other end of the line must’ve asked if he ever had to get onto me about school. My dad replied, “Get onto Kristen about homework or grades? Nah, I never have to do that. She’s much harder on herself about that than I could ever be on her.”
At the same time, I grew up believing I wasn’t allowed to make mistakes, and there’s a part of me that believes that is still true today. The hard thing, you see, is that I’m well aware that I’m as flawed as anyone and do make mistakes. And I can begin to believe that, like a checking account with too little money, just maybe my many mistakes and shortcomings are going to overdraw on God’s grace.
Or maybe He simply looks down on me, and with a red magic marker, marks an “F” for failure.
A few nights later, I’m mulling all this over while flipping through a notecard stack of Bible verses I’ve had for years. When I get to this verse, I stop flipping:
“This is how we know that we belong to the truth and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence: If our hearts condemn us, we know that God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.”
1 John 3:19-20 NIV
Now I’m crying yet again (of course!) because the relief I felt from it is palatable.
God is greater than our hearts, and He knows everything.
God may convict, but He doesn’t condemn. He knows what I’ve done and, from that place of conviction, what I need to ask His forgiveness for. In those times, He forgives because His grace always outruns my very real mistakes. As the Chris Tomlin song, “Indescribable”, says, “He knows the depths of my heart and He loves me the same.”
But He also knows what I’m holding onto from a place of condemnation, and His grace says, Let it go, Kristen, and let it go for good.
Yes, we have personal accountability, and sometimes apologies are necessary. But our mistakes, regrets, failings, and disappointments are never the end of our story. God’s redemptive grace is.
If you’re especially prone to being exceptionally hard on yourself, know that there’s nothing you could do to outrun God’s grace, either. His arms are reaching for you, stretched out wide. How wide? From one of His Son’s nailed hands on the cross to the other. This is how far His grace goes for you.
Take heart: God is not up there wishing you’d get your act together down here. He’s not giving you a grade. He’s giving you His grace. He doesn’t tolerate you, He’s totally taken with you. Because of Christ’s cleansing work on the cross, when God looks at you, He sees His beloved, not a bungled-up mess.
He knows everything, and He adores you just the same.
And that’s the end of the story.
This post was originally shared at my other writing home, (in)courage.
You can listen to this via podcast format here.
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