F I V E Y E A R S.

This last weekend marked five years of blog life. Five years of captive thoughts, over-processed emotions, and memories.

My main purpose in blogging has changed a few times. I initially meant it to be a digital diary of sorts, to vent and ramble so I didn't bore other people with the thoughts that bombarded my brain. And then I realized that venting wasn't enough, it wasn't about simply recording memories either. I tried to blog through books and never made it very far. It has mostly served as a place of processing. I have found that when I write, I find hope and resolve in parts of my life where hope and resolve seem the most diminished. Sometimes I feel like I do have something to say to the world and most of the time, I am talking to myself. Convincing myself to "pull it together" or giving myself a limited amount of time to wallow and move on to the abundant life I know that is awaiting me if I would embrace truth.

Lately truth has been hard to embrace...for one reason or another. My devo's today rocked my current view of God. It's the little thoughts we think that grow into mind-consuming thoughts and actions and habits and lives. Romans chapter 5 is my jam! It's a go to passage for me for every scenario. It's like reaching hom base when you're playing tag- it's safe, it's soothing, it's perspective.

I can always tell when my heart is afar off or my mind is dwelling on trivial things by how I react to this passage because it is the kind of truth that has changed my life so many times I could never deny its gravity- not at my laziest or most stubborn meltdown moment. It is for real.

Romans 5:8-11:

6 For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.

7 For one will scarcely die for a righteous person-though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die-

8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

9 Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God.

10 For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.

These are strong words. Not everyone is facing my struggles or laying in the bed that I have made, but wherever you're at consider the strong language that Is used to describe this relationship. "Weak, ungodly sinners saved from the wrath of God, reconciled and saved by His life" could this relationship be any more one sided? I don't know about you..but that is mighty fine news to me. I was helpless and hopeless apart from Christ until God saw fit to JUSTIFY me by accepting Christ as the propitiation for my sin and letting me off the hook. And then as His reconciled, I personally reap the benefits of Christ's resurrection so that I have hope in His life and confidence in my status before Him, even when "as His kid who should know better" I find myself in helpless places- it is never ever ever without hope because He has done all the work and He, even now, is at work in me to complete what He started.

This is what I am most grateful for this Thanksgiving. Everything feels different and weird and distant and hard and helpless and uncharted, but not without hope.

Today I am grateful that somehow the struggles I face have filled a blog with thousands of words that ultimately show that I don't have it all together, but that Christ is at work in me and He is the only One worthy of glory! How He views me and loves me is the hope that's getting me out of bed this morning. It's a reason to celebrate and give thanks and make today count.

My prayer is that if this blog manages to creep by for another five years, I'll be singing the same song- He is mine and I am His.