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I am sitting in my “formal” dining room, which has always seemed like an extravagant name for the place where my giant leopard print chair lives, where my craft box sits on the floor. I have threatened this carpet with hot glue and fuzzy tipped markers. It is old and world-wise. It cannot be frightened.
But tonight I’m acting as if there are china plates laid out, the fragile kind with silver trim around the edges. I’m conducting myself as if there are three forks by every place setting and someone will bring the caviar at any moment.
This is the source of my angst: There’s a camera staring at me. In a moment I will push the little red button. I will be live on the internet. It’s in these pauses that everything I have ever done wrong sometimes comes rushing back like last-minute race disqualifications.
It’s likely the opposing team, the enemy of my heart making a final assault. Or perhaps it’s only my own anxiety. Either way the memory of a stunning series of failures plays like a bad home movie in my mind. The script goes like this, “You can’t be used by God,” “You should stop right now,” and “Who do you think you are?”
Then into this space, into this fear and shame, comes a verse I read just this morning, “Whoever comes to me I will never drive away,” (John 6:37). And it seems a voice whispers deep inside, “When someone you love is going through a hard time you don’t walk away. You walk through.” I realize suddenly the worry nagging me for so long is false. I have wondered if God might give up on me for my struggles but the opposite is true. He’s there, always, still saying, “I will never leave you or forsake you” (Hebrews 13:5). And this too:
I will be with you
when you pass through the waters,
and when you pass through the rivers,
they will not overwhelm you.
You will not be scorched
when you walk through the fire,
and the flame will not burn you.
(Isaiah 43:2)
If we are showing up to serve our Maker, if we are seeking to follow Him, and there is someone trying to push us away, then we can be sure it is not God. He is not saying we are disqualified. He’s not hollering “shape up or ship out.” His instruction isn’t, “Come back when you’ve got it together.” Instead His invitation is, “Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28).
As I take hold of this truth my shoulders relax, my breath slows. I settle into my seat in the “formal” dining room that has become a place of simple, gritty, beautiful grace. I reach for the camera and push the red button. Whatever happens, whatever I say, I will still have God by my side and on my side at the end of the day.
XOXO
Holley Gerth
P.S. Next Tuesday evening at 9pm EST, I’ll be joining my friend Lisa-Jo Baker to talk about friendship fears and how Jesus will never give up on us or unfriend us. You can sign up here to tune in for the Facebook live video (it will be posted in a private book club group).
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I’m having Coffee For Your Heart with my friend Holley Gerth
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