Grace Upon Grace...Grace Multiplied

It’s so difficult to put in to words the experiences I’ve had lately. I don’t think I’ve ever truly experienced something that is so indescribable.

For the past eight years, I have felt more failure than I think anyone can imagine. Eight years ago, I had an experience that changed my life forever, a day that I was publicly humiliated in front of my entire high school for a wrong feeling I had and for wrong words I said. I have held on to that guilt and that hurt and made it a large part of my identity. I have seen that event as a dot in time, a point of reference, to which I can trace back every failure ever accomplished by me back to that specific moment. I have seen it as a day in which I failed so miserably that I couldn't possibly move on from it.

I seemed to think that ever since that day, all I’ve been is a failure. I charted how that day began a cycle of unhealthy relationships and how every insecurity and nightmare I have is linked back to that one event.

Three months ago the head pastor of my church told me I was “an extra grace required person.” He explained to me that is why I am not invited to things at their church because I’m “like crazy Uncle fester at Thanksgiving that no one wants to be around.”

Those words cut me more than anything has in eight years and brought me right back to the public humiliation of high school. I hear the words so clearly “You are worthless. No one likes to be around you. You are too difficult to love.” All those lies I have believed for eight years and this pastor re-enforced every lie. 

Both of these experiences and the ones mentioned in the Worthless post can be summed up in one word: Shame. I have been ashamed of who I was, ashamed of what I did, of what I said, of how I should have done things better, of how I “failed.”

I have felt shame in even telling the stories because I felt that people would agree with my pastor or agree with my high school and acknowledge even more that I am more trouble than I'm worth. That the good in me doesn't outweigh the bad. 

I have felt so much shame that I thought I was beyond love, beyond hope, beyond forgiveness. I believed that my earthly life would have to be one of heartache and the cycle would never end and the shame would never fade until the day I die. I have been unable to accept Christ's freedom and therefore unable to value myself.

But not today.

Today at church, God reveled Himself to me in a way so intimate and so personal that it’s difficult to write about.

Today marks change. Today marks a new beginning. Today marks difference.

I have felt shame. So much shame I didn’t think there was a way to be free from it.

But today, the Holy Spirit filled me.

I looked up what the number “25” means. It means “Grace upon Grace” or “Grace multiplied.” I was born on the 25^th. And today on the 25^th is when God gave such a beautiful intimate gift to me at church this morning. So my life truly IS one of "extra" grace, but not in the way that I need more of it than others, rather in the way that God has so freely and so lovingly given me more Grace than I ever could fathom.

Grace means "Dignified" and Dignified is the opposite of shame. Grace is free, it is unmerited, it is the condition of being favored and being favored is the opposite of being humiliated.

Up until this moment, in the past three months, every time someone has said the word “grace” I have cringed. It made me feel dirty, it made me feel marked. I would hear the enemy’s lies so clearly “grace is a bad thing. You require more of it than other people! You are so bad that normal grace doesn’t even cover you!” How bold it is of someone of Christian faith to turn such a Godly word into an insult, into something dirty.

But tonight, on the 25^th, I accept Grace upon Grace. I accept that I have Grace multiplied on my life. I accept that for nothing I have ever done or said, or not done or not said, God has favor on me. I accept the truth that God has made me whole. And today, I am beginning my journey towards anchoring my worth and value in Christ.

And I thank Him for all the extra grace He has given me.

I Am Worthless Because

I am worthless because when I was 16, I acted in ways that I shouldn’t and felt things that people shouldn’t feel and I got in trouble at school because I was obsessed with this popular girl and they told me I was never to speak to her again and we’ve never spoken since.

I am worthless because even after I got in trouble at school, I continued to act out, did horrible things like stick my tongue out at the principal and get suspended, steal some girls notes and ditch class all the time and I became “bad.”

I am worthless because that was eight years ago and I still let it define me.

I am worthless because I’ve allowed a pattern in my life to begin since I was 16 where I get in relationships and ruin them.

I am worthless because when I was 19 I got in a relationship with a man who had another girlfriend and I continued to try to make it work because he made me forget about what happened when I was 16.

I am worthless because when I was 20 I fell in love with my theatre professor because she made me forget about what happened when I was 16 and when I was 19. But then she moved away and the whole world felt like it would stop spinning.

I am worthless because when I was 22 I became obsessed with the school secretary because she was one of the best friends I had ever had and she made me forget about what happened to the theatre teacher, the man, and the girl when I was 16. But then we got in a fight and nothing has ever been the same since.

I am worthless because when I was 23, I decided to move twelve hours away to get rid of all this baggage and to start over, clean, fresh and new and I just realized you can’t do that because baggage just jumps in the car and moves with you.

I am worthless because no matter how many people tell me I am pretty or good or I am a nice person, all I think is “Oh good I’m fooling them, they don’t know me well enough yet.” And I know that eventually they will realize the truth about me.

I am worthless because I believe I am worthless

When will I ever stop believing I am worthless? When will I ever believe I have value? When will I ever stop getting into friendships that hurt so bad? I came here to start fresh and new and instead got fourteen more wounds to pile on to the heap.