comfortable in my own skin

Blog #1,161

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

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I still write these blogs as reminders to myself of how good God’s been to me. I am so very forgetful and prone to wander, prone to leave the God I love, prone to return to broken cisterns of doubt and fear.

I write about grace so much because I love it so much, and I love it so much because I’ve needed it and found it at just the right times. Left to myself, I can very clingy and needy, very co-dependent, and self-absorbed. I am an approval-addict. An affirmation junkie.

But that grace of God found me. And it did not leave me where it found me. I found that Jesus’ amazing love for me makes me loveable. I discovered that it’s more than okay for me to be myself. It’s the best form of worship I can offer. Just me loving being me. Me refusing to be conformed to what everybody else says I should be, to what the media tells me I need to be to matter.

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I will never stop telling the story of how Eucharisteo forged my miracle, how a lifestyle of joy and gratitude and thanksgiving opened my eyes to manifold blessings and allowed me to open closed fists to receive more of God’s riches.

I am blessed. Even if I never have a six-figure salary. Even if I am ever more the friend and never the love interest, the guy girls want to marry. Even if I never get another blessing or another visible reminder of God’s presence.

Here’s to 1,000 more posts to remind forgetful me of how good my life is and how great God is. Here’s to all of you who keep encouraging me, challenging me, and blessing me in ways I will never be able to repay.

Thank you.

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Things I Love 3: The Trilogy of Terribly Named Blogs

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

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I continue with my list of things that I love, things that may not seem like such a big deal, but are present and daily reminders of the goodness of God in a thousand small ways. I will pick up where I left off with #57.

57) Not feeling the need to be friends with everyone so you can have deeper friendships that have more meaning.

58) When you hear a sermon that speaks directly to you and feels like it was written specifically for you.

59) All the black and white episodes of The Andy Griffith show.

60) A well-timed pun.

61) Finally being comfortable in my own skin.

62) Being able to laugh at my own goofiness and not be bothered by the fact that I’m a goober 99% of the time.

63) That all the future promises of God are as good as done.

64) GPS that keeps me from getting lost on these hopelessly and gloriously confusing roads in and around Nashville.

65) That  nothing, absolutely nothing, will ever separate me from the love of God in Jesus Christ.

66) Taking all my size 34 jeans to Goodwill because they’re way too big for me now.

67) Scottish, Irish, and British accents.

68) The fact that I’m taller than Tom Cruise.

69) People who get me.

70) That the people who matter don’t mind and the people who mind don’t matter.

71) Reading through The Chronicles of Narnia and The Lord of the Rings every single year.

72) Ditto for The Hobbit.

73) My very,very red New Balance running shoes that are super-duper lightweight.

74) Anything Patty Griffin has ever or will ever record– even if it’s singing through the phone book alphabetically.

75) That no one is beyond the reach of God’s love and that it is never too late to start over.

76) The movie Elizabethtown– and anyone who has actually seen it and appreciates it the way I do.

77) Wearing my red chucks, i.e. my very red vintage-style Chuck Taylor Converse high tops.

78) Any worship song by Hillsong, Kari Jobe, or Chris Tomlin.

79) A good quote from Mother Teresa.

80) That I promise in the future I will try to think of better titles for these blogs.