My sister and I were having a conversation yesterday about orphan care. We were sharing the challenges and the beauty....but what stuck with me was the confession of the hard. The hard places it sometimes brings us to. The ugliness it can reveal from within.

And for the first time in my life I feel freedom to reveal the ugly.
I'm so thankful for that freedom. I'm so thankful for the Word of God which has been showing me that I am not defined by what I do or don't do.
I spent so many years trying to protect myself from feeling 'less than' by performing perfectly and not showing any of my flaws.
When I don't understand that I am loved despite what I do, I hide behind a wall of self-defense.
And I have learned that I am called to something much greater than all of this hiding.

There is such freedom and beauty in confessing the hard. Talking about the ugly. Especially with the One who desires to use it as an avenue to bring about repentance, dependence, and gratefulness.
I'm learning that I can hand Him everything- the beautiful moments and the moments that come from something broken in me.
He wastes nothing. He orchestrates every moment. He leads me into the hard and straight into the ugly and He is wanting me to worship Him through it.

But it is in those moments when I stumble and fall that my flesh wants to shrink back. I want to find a dark, solitary place to put my own bandage over my shame.
And my Papa actually desires to stay close to me.
He wants to pick me up so He can wash the scrapes and cuts.
He knows there has to be a washing first to prevent infection and scars, and that it hurts, it's humbling, but it is followed by healing.
And He is asking me to stay right with Him in the light during that painful washing. To keep our relationship in the truth of who He is. He wants me to be in the heat of His presence, in the pain of the pruning. To stay faithful through the intense filing down of my flesh.
To remain, endure, persist.
To not withdraw into myself.

He desires repentance from me. It is beautiful to Him. And learning to own up to and hand Him the ugly, and then to allow Him to help me turn from it is life changing for me. The thought of it makes me breathe a little freer and fills my heart with gratitude for His amazing love.
And then gratitude for the circumstances that reveal my inadequacies...
Thankfulness for the child whose behavior shows that he needs a bigger love than I am capable of giving in and of myself. Thankfulness for the messy days of motherhood and marriage.

And I'm learning that sometimes it's in those moments after the scrapes have been washed clean that He gives me the grace to let Him hold me the closest.
No, I am not defined by my performance....but I'm either taken deeper into Him or deeper into myself by my response to it....

"I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, then you will produce much fruit. Without me, you can’t do anything."
John 15:5