Tearing

Getting back into routine yesterday was such a good feeling. It felt as if I had finally slipped back into the groove that I left when I went home for semester break.

More than that, God hit me hard with something that I have often struggled with.

Who am I?

As the mid-terms were handed back and my mark was lower than those around me and yet by no means anything to be ashamed of, I felt myself sliding into my oft-visited pit of comparison (synonymous with the pit of despair, if you would).

There are so many expectations that I place upon myself. Expectations of what marks I am to get, how organized I should be, how responsible I should be, how I should look, what my friends should think of me, even how I should come across in my blog. Not that I spend *forever* preparing it, but I read it through a good three or four times to make sure that everything makes sense, that my words are crafted well, and even pat myself on the shoulder for some good alliteration or some attention grabbing stories. Then, I anxiously check the number of times that post has been read after a few days of being posted on FB. How sad am I?

And when one of those personal expectations I hold for myself is torn down, it hurts a lot. And although I’ve placed my academic life at His feet over and over and over and over and over again, every time I keep one fingernail hooked in it and drag it towards myself again.

As I stared at my mark and flipped through the test to see what I had gotten wrong, He held me from slipping into that pit of despair and made me think.

Who am I?

Who am I when all of my pre-conceived notions of what I should be are stripped away? Who am I when all my talents are incomparable to others or are not receiving notice? Who am I when I roll out of bed with greasy hair and acne and humongous pjs?

Am I fully His? Are my days consumed with making Him look better than me?

Not, as the saying goes, thinking less of myself, but thinking of myself less.

What does a heart after God’s own heart look like? Am I living every moment in a true conviction of who God has made me to be? Am I secure in the way that He has created me? Are the various facets of my life reflecting Him?

That test hurt. And the conviction about so many areas in my life where I fail to honour Him left me feeling flaky and like a pretty empty-shell.

He is all I need, and so often I find myself creating my identity apart from Him. It’s not that He’s only sufficient for all that I could ever need, He’s overflowing with all that I could ever want.

He is the perfect bridegroom waiting for me to realize that He has crafted me to be His perfect bride.

And I let the world define me, instead of Him. I tell myself that I have to appear a certain way, act a certain way, seem a certain way.

But I want a heart that is after His own. I don’t know if earthy is the word that I’m looking for, but I long to be someone who is down-to-earth, who has no façade, who is pure in the way that I represent His Son in my actions and in the way that I speak. To speak with honesty and wisdom, to be thoughtful and kind, cheerful and reasonable, and yet completely head over heels in love with a God who delights to dance with his daughter.

And I feel as if my pretty rainbow-coloured fluffy illusions are being torn into pieces by His Word, and I feel devastated and empty and not enough.

But He takes those pieces and places each one, by His wisdom, into the frame of His will, and purely by His grace, the Son shines through the stained glass window art that He is making.

May I be willing to be torn, to not be enough, that I may be healed in His image, to testify that He is more than enough.