How did I get here standing in a mess that I have made?
Little by little adding to the chaos everyday
I know it’s time, it’s time to come clean
I know it’s time, it’s time to come clean
Boxes full of things I’ve shuffled and shifted place to place
All the years of me, everything I want to keep and throw away
I know it’s time, it’s time to come clean
I know it’s time, it’s time to come clean
I empty out the pieces
And I put them where they go…
But where do they go?
Where do they go?
Does anything in me know?
Where do they go?
I’m finding what I’ve covered and holding it up to the morning light
I’m opening my life a little at a time and it’s all right
‘Cause it takes time, it takes time to come clean
Yeah, and I know it’s time, it’s time to come clean
I’m picking up the pieces
And I put them where they go…
Because I need to know
Just where do they go? Where do they go?
I’ve got to know just where do they go?
Where do they go? Will I ever know?
–Audrey Assad, “Come Clean”
I find myself today…on my knees. Before the God I have knelt before so many times… I am humbled. By my inadequacy. My unworthiness on so many levels. By my constant failings. Immediately following the moments I draw closest to him…I screw up. Something shatters. Pieces lie around me…added to the pieces that were there before. And still, in that chaos, I know…
He knows me.
I’m mostly a really slow learner. A lot of the time, actually. No amount of beating myself up changes it. No number of attempts at justification make it different. I cause those shattered pieces. Boxes and boxes full of them. And when I can’t put them back together…they stay in the boxes that get shoved around and piled up…so I can function. And trip. And stub my toes.
But all those pieces…He knows where they go…even though I have NO idea. He has a plan to work through my clumsiness. And I never deserve it. (ahh…that struggle with grace) All my fumbling to pick the pieces up and look them over and figure them out…He already knows…he knows what to do with my failures. I don’t believe that God wants me to lay the box in front of him and let him sort through it for me by himself. But. I do believe He wants me to pick them up, think clearly about them, and allow Him the opportunity to work through them with me. He sits with me in my self-made suffering. He sits with me through all my suffering. He gives me his hand. And his ear. And his heart. Because he knows me.
And he loves me.
‘Cause this is not about what you’ve done,
But what’s been done for you.
This is not about where you’ve been,
But where your brokenness brings you to
This is not about what you feel,
But what He felt to forgive you,
And what He felt to make you loved.
You are more than the choices that you’ve made,
You are more than the sum of your past mistakes,
You are more than the problems you create,
You’ve been remade.
–Tenth Avenue North, “You Are More”
All Is Grace 