Crystal Clear

I just want to be clear on something.

If I could, I would bottle every positive comment made, compliment expressed, smile given in reference to these blog postings so that I could actually drink them. I am that prideful. After I've posted a new blog, I check it regularly for the next several days to see if someone has commented on something I have said. I was surprised, pleasantly surprised, when someone I didn't know read the blog and commented about how it had uplifted her for the day. I relished the idea that something I said had done that for her. I am that prideful. I have known, for a long time, that God granted me the gift of writing. He blessed with the ability to string words together in such a way that you would read it and enjoy it and probably want to hear more. He did all the work, but I want all the credit. I am that prideful. Sometimes, I reread my words over and over out loud and to myself because I am so please with how they sounded and how perfectly they captured exactly what I was trying to say. And, I forget about God and His gift-giving, all together. I am that prideful.

I am that prideful.

And, I am that insecure.

For all of my life, I have sought the affirmation of others. I have tap danced my feet to oblivion just to hear the applause. I have joked and flung sarcasm just to hear the roar of laughter. I have lied and pretended to create a better story. I took what others said about me and my life and my appearance and my worth and my personality and my writing and have used it as the very food needed to keep on living. I have been on a self-worth high thanks to the smile or accolade from someone else. I have groveled in the self-worth pit of mud and muck thanks to a jeer or rejection from someone else. I have ridden the roller coaster. I have surfed the ebb and flow. I have trekked the valley and scaled the peak.

And, it has gotten me nothing.

So, I just want to be completely clear on this:

I am a fraud. I am useless. I am wrong most of the time. I cannot do what I say I can do. I did not do what I said I did. I will not do what I said I would. I am afraid of more things than I could ever list. I am weak. I am puny. I am slime. I am scum. I am wretched. I am gross. I am stupid. I am unlovable. I should not be trusted. I am a liar. I am a cheat. I am crooked. I am terrible with money. I do not deserve anything that I have been given. I should be put to death. I should be thrown out. I should be cast aside. I should never have been given a second chance. I am completely unworthy.

So, if you happen to see ANYTHING other than the things I have just listed, please recognize that you have seen a miracle that ONLY the Lord God can do, through His Spirit. It is by His Grace and through His mighty hand that I am anything other than what I have listed above.

I just want to be completely clear on this.

"But, by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace to me was not without affect. No, I worked harder than all of them - yet, not I, but the grace of God that was with me." I Corinthians 15:10