when God and I are honest

Face in hands, I watch as my tears drip heavy on my wooden floor.  One by one in a silent rain.

"I thought I knew you,"  my own voice sounds distant, strangled, hushed from the burdens it carries, mindful of the wounded pride it hints at.

"Oh, God, you know I said I'd give you everything, you know I promised to sacrifice it all.  But I never thought it would be like this.  Even when you came and took so much I held closest, leaving me mourning the loss of another dream of ministry, a loss of yet another pregnancy, an awakening in a cold hospital room without the comfort of my husband beside me, him being over a hundred miles away and working long hours and seven days a week.  You stripped me of all my security, yet why do I still feel you have rejected all I have surrendered to you?"

My angry words too hastily said now sit in the thick air between us.  I hold my breath, and your truth is here, as surely as I fill my lungs with it.

What sacrifice could I possibly give that would be acceptable to you?

You whisper truth and bring tender freedom, the truth I've always known yet somehow find myself forgetting:  there is no sacrifice but one.

One without sin, without blame, without stain of any kind.  One pure sacrifice made for...me.  His life for mine.  The Son of God, the only perfect Son of Man. 

And now He stands in my stead.

Jesus is ALL I have.

"There is no more that I could give to gain your acceptance now.  Of all the things I do, of all I give away to you, of all I say, or think, or am, to somehow earn your favor-- 

The only thing I have that you accept is Jesus.

The only thing you ask is that I LET HIM BE FOR ME WHAT I CANNOT.

And it really is that simple and yet that hard to grasp.

I am nothing.

But oh, how my Christ is everything!

And when you look at me, God, that is WHO you see and that is WHY you will always accept me."