Old Wine Skins

Did you ever try to fit into a new pair of pants or shoes or even a whole new outfit and it just didn’t feel right? It seems to me that I have been doing that my whole life. It’s something that you don’t think too much about at first. I mean, you know it doesn’t suit you but you do it anyway. ################ We all have our reasons. Maybe it’s the new thing to do, maybe it’s the hip thing, maybe it’s expected because of your new friends, new school, new job, new church, new spouse, new next thing. Maybe it’s you. Maybe you need something new to fill a hold in your life so you are tying out different ways… ################### If you all read my other posts you know that I started out very poor and alone in a household full of people. I always felt that way; orphaned to some degree, and alone my whole life. “Home” less so to speak. But I wasn’t an orphan and I did have a family. My life took so many twists and turns that I could write a trilogy twice over. Each would read so vastly different for each stage of my life that you would swear that I was talking about a different person each time. But it was all me… various facets of me. ################### I tried on so many new ways of living and being that I lost who I was in the shuffle. At times, I was stretched so thin with expectations and holes in my armor and life that I truly never thought I would ever find “it”. That thing that made me stop feeling empty inside. That next new thing to fill that hole. #################### I hit my rock bottom in life, and, when you do that, you tend to give up. You ask yourself, ‘Why try to be what you are not? Why do what makes you miserable?’ You can even become bitter, selfish and guarded. You do unto others before they can do unto you because you wised up. You take what you want and justify how you are because life did you that way… or that is what you tell yourself. ################## You have hit so many walls, been left behind, been used and abused, beat down mentally, physically, emotionally, lied to, broken, betrayed, dismissed and all but destroyed. You don’t fit in or measure up. Someone’s always going to make sure you know it.################# But in the darkness that is this world, a tiny flicker of hope emerged. In fact, I recognized it because it would try to penetrate my life at various intervals...always niggling in the back of my mind. Sometimes I would swat it away in irritation and distrust. Sometimes I’d stand still and let it come but then yank my heart away like I burnt it on a stove. Sometimes I’d try it on, just as I was, but I always felt unsure, inadequate, like it just wasn’t mine. It didn’t fit. Sometimes I would soak in it like the warmth of the sun and let it filter into the crevices of my broken life like a soothing ointment. But it was never ‘mine’. It was like wearing someone else’s clothes to church because yours just weren’t good enough. ##################### But over time, decades truly, that hole in my life, that something missing, all of that brokenness and damage… all of the old things that I let define me… the light was like trying to put a new patch on old jeans. It was just one more thing that didn’t fit. One more thing that would clarify my unworthiness. ################## But you see, that light had followed me since I was a little girl laying in the grass talking to the stars. That light was there for me at times when I thought there was no one. That light illuminated dark corners to protect me. It let me discern things that I wasn’t smart enough to see on my own. Even at my worst, even in my sin, even in my brokenness and rebellion, that light surrounded me, brought people to me, guided me, warmed me, softened my heart and through all of these things and far, far more… it was I who become new. ######################## All that time… struggling against the grain; trying to put on a new patch to old jeans; trying to pour new wine into dirty glasses (so to speak)… and He was trying to do a work IN me. In fact, He still is… every single day, every minute of the day. ################ But let me tell you this: I didn’t even realize over all those wasted years of having it my way and just dipping my toes in so that I didn’t have to commit… oh, the peace, the love, the joy that emanates from my soul because I surrender every day. I would have dived right in head first, decades ago, had I known. He’d have had to save me from drowning if I had only knew the blessings of feeling whole.#################### Sweetheart, are YOU feeling it, too? Is that Light creeping in and you know that it is for you but you aren’t sure of it? Does it keep coming into your life in different ways and it’s getting harder to ignore? #################### Are there trials in life? Yep. Is that light gonna give you a stress free life? Naw. We have sin and death in the world and it won’t disappear. People are still people after all. But trust me, don’t wait til you are dying or your life is in total chaos to dive right in. Nothing frees you from your darkness, your demons, your guilt and shame, your chains, like the fact that He is chasing you because He sees who you are meant to be and not who you are in this moment. And sometimes our own mama’s can’t see that! He loves us that much. He already died for all our bad choices and lame excuses. He loves you that much that He took on your sin and death so that you wouldn’t have to. So why waste time? ############### It is us, you see. It’s always us. We stand in our own way. We choose what we want to see. We can be so traumatized by life that it’s hard to believe in good-but it’s there. I’m just sorry it took me so long. ################## Why do ya think they say, “God is Love”? THEY know it like I know it because we dove right in!! ######################## If you are feeling it, you are chosen and loved. He is waiting. Dive right in the water is fine, love! ################## See you in the Living water!!! ############### Matthew 9: 16-17