Today I talked to a missionary organization about my application for foreign missions. Before the call, I was so charged. On fire with purpose and longing to...finally...take steps to fulfill a long ago calling to share Jesus with other people, in other lands. My heart was racing. I felt my hands trembling as I picked up the phone when it rang, right on the dot at 1 p.m. God answered my prayer for calm as I began to share from my heart about His call, and why I want to do this. The missionary on the other end was loving, peaceful, and quiet....too quiet, I soon realized...from the moment I explained that I have been divorced. More than once, divorced.
That silence soon became palpable, tense with unspoken questions, until she spoke. "We will need your pastor to share his thoughts on your divorces," she said, not unkindly, but with definite new reserve. "And you will need to fill out our form on divorce." For the rest of the interview, my brain was foggy and my heart stuttered unevenly. I couldn't hear clearly, even when she assured me that this was "not a game-changer", and that I would most likely still be approved for the weeklong training in a different state, one more prequel to taking my final steps to a missionary assignment.
All I could hear was the rush of my heart beating in my ears. All I could feel was the dizziness suddenly draining the strength from me. I sat down. I closed my eyes. And I squeezed back hot tears from my eyes.
I thought of all the ways I've failed in this lifetime. The weight, the enormous crushing weight of my many mistakes, my poor choices, my off - judgment, my various sins of character and of omission and of commission....everything I've done in my life, all the wrongs I have not yet been able to make right... rushed to me in a nauseating blur.
I realized, in that one heartbreaking moment of horrible clarity, that I might not be able to be a missionary after all.
I have made, perhaps, one too many mistakes.
I have lived so much less than a perfect Christian life.
And my walk with Him has been so jagged, so up and down, so inconsistent.
I have stumbled so very many times.
I am so terribly flawed.
Literally paralyzed with grief for things that cannot be undone, for paths that can't be unwalked, and with the soul crushing awareness that it may be too little, too late...this faith that is now rising up within me...wanting to live for Him, wanting to go for Him, wanting to share Him, wanting to be in full-time ministry for His glory...this faith may not be enough. Not enough to overcome all the bad in me, not enough to heal all the broken places and make them new. The humiliation, the hopelessness, rose up so strong I felt like being sick. I had no excuses, no net to fall into, no answer for all that I am, and all the broken parts of me.
I opened my eyes, rubbed them, shut them again, felt my body sink back, worn down and exhausted, against the soft, familiar sofa where I go to read my Bible and pray. One simple word escaped my lips: the go-to word I cling to when I have nowhere else and no one else and nothing else to grasp: "Help."
And then, right there, on that brown sofa, with my tear-stained cheeks hot and flushed, with my heart broken and cracked in two, my beloved Father, my God, my Lord and Saviour, did what He always does when I whisper that one word. He comes to me, immediately, and He helps me. He draws me to Himself, He holds me close and He soothes my troubled spirit like only He can do.
And He speaks to me. He shares His heart with me.
He ministers the most healing, powerful, beautiful, anointed, glorious gift of all: He gives to me His full, whole Acceptance.
"My sweet child," I heard His familiar, deep, warm and loving Voice, "I know. I already know all of your failings. I was there, remember? I was there during each and every one. I know about your marriages. I know your divorces. I know your fears and I know your shortcomings. And, my darling girl, I love you STILL. I love you IN your brokenness. And I always, always will."
Suddenly, the hopelessness began to evaporate in the light of that great, undeserved Acceptance. His unconditional love for me, the constant of my existence, transformed my life once again.
I realized anew that all of who I am today, every bit of the woman I have become, is part and parcel of the woman I was yesterday, last year, ten years ago. When I walked away from Him, when I came stumbling back, when I defied His Word, when I left my faith in the dust, just to have my own selfish way, He was there. He never once left me alone.
And I realized that no matter what, He can use me. He can use me just the way I am. Right now. He can use those broken, shattered pieces of my life. He can use me one way or the other. I may not be accepted by any traditional Christian organization. I may not be accepted as a formal missionary. Ever. But I am a missionary every day that I draw breath here on this earth. I am His child. I breathe because of His spirit within me. And, broken and battered and bruised, I am still utterly beautiful in His sight.
And, really, who else even matters? If He is for me, it does not matter who else is against me, or even just not all that into me. He is my Reason for living. He is my Lord. And, blessed thought, I am...STILL...His.
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