I'm Not Who I Thought I Was

So much of this past year has been an ugly revealing of my true nature.

I take our foster kids to visit their mom twice a week, and I have noticed a steady decline in my good mood starting about 24 hours before the event, with increasing crabbiness overnight and into the morning hours, developing into strong outbursts of general unpleasantness by midday,  followed up with widespread gusts of hyper-criticism in the hours leading up to the visit.  

Periods of carping and quibbling are not unusual, and some scathing bursts of sarcasm can also be expected.  Residents of..well, everywhere...are advised to not call me, not come over, and not accidentally wander into the same room and look in my direction, lest they be caught in the maelstrom.  

Sadly, some unfortunate people actually live here, and, having nowhere else to go, they rarely escape the onslaught. 

I have blamed my personality change on a certain morally, ethically and motivationally-challenged female personage who has spent the past two years testing the limits of my good will, good intentions, and gullibility.  But she is not the problem, and I say that in all honesty.  She HAS a problem, and it needs fixing, but she is not MY problem.

I am.  

Once again, I think the Holy Spirit has used circumstances in this arduous year to paint for me yet another picture of the depths of His mercy toward me.  God is self-sustaining.  He is all powerful, all knowing, all seeing, perfectly just, perfectly loving, perfectly holy, perfectly...perfect.  In every way.

And so He comes and reveals Himself to whom?  

To someone who can benefit Him in some way?  To someone who can add a missing dimension to His life?  Who can love Him like He deserves to be loved?  Someone who will be reliable?  Faithful?  Honest in her dealings with Him?

He didn't?

Say what?

Well, maybe she can at least show some decent gratitude for all the good things He gives her--some because she asks, most of them because He just wants to give good gifts.  Because if all she does is take, take, take, and then whine about how hard it all is and how everything is just stacked against her, and how unfair life is, I'll bet this God is OUT OF THERE.  Washing His hands of her and everyone like her.  Winging it back up the company of the angels and the perfect fellowship of the the Three In One.

Good grief.  Do I need a bat upside the head to see the similarities between the God/Sandra relationship and the Sandra/Nameless-Personage relationship?

Um.  Yep.

The answer is definitely yes.  I needed two years of relentless, brazenly unrepentant selfishness inflicted upon me--and a splendidly timed sermon by our pastor--to bludgeon me into an awareness of my lack of gratitude.  I think it was the message that Pastor Ford gave in Sunday School last week that finally woke me up.  

God's covenant with me, His willingness to bind Himself in a relationship with me, His incredible sacrifice for me was 100% for my benefit. 

God got nothing He didn't already have.  He loves me, but not for what I can offer Him.  Certainly not for what He gets out of our relationship, that's for sure!  I know myself too well!

 He is so much the essence of love, that the terms and the sacrifice are all His, but the gain is all mine.  He is the owner of all things and has the right to ask for anything.  

I am a lost, wayward, headstrong, prickly, snarling Gollum of a person, and he has every right to make me a cowering, trembling slave.  But He tenderly takes me in, pays every debt I incur with His own blood, binds every wound, fixes every mess and calls me His daughter instead.

I haven't even scratched the surface of what I owe to this aforementioned female Personage because of the mercy that God has shown to me.

Oh!  That I will one day learn to relate to people for THEIR benefit and not my own. 

Lord, by your strength may I not continue be a miserly recipient of your beautiful grace, but rather to reflect it in such a way that it will draw others into relationship with You.

And may that happen soon.  I have a visit tomorrow...