"And You Give Yourself Away"
No pain that I will ever experience is unique. Somewhere, somehow, someone is feeling exactly how I am at this moment on this huge raging ball of rock hurtling through the universe. Funny how I spent my entire adolescence, and most of my twenties, thinking my struggles were so special, so unique and so big. How full of pride and full of ignorance I was... I am... in so many ways. We all struggle. We all suffer. We all fear. We all feel and cause pain.
Sometimes my heart gets so overwhelmed with the frustration of being human, and then I want to laugh at myself. Who am I? What have I suffered? What about the 7-8-9 year old being sold into sexual slavery? What about the adolescent on the brink of suicide? What about the nations starving... the victims of genocide... the victims of abuse and neglect... the victims of radical religion?
I pray for protection, for a pregnancy, for an adoption, for mercy and strength and gentleness. But when I'm really being honest with myself, I know that I should pray the hardest for salvation from my spoiled, entitled self. I get my heart hurt because I can't have the things I want - the ornaments of affluence that make me feel so entitled, so full of myself and so stupid with pride.
And then I remember...
YOU gave yourself away.
YOU poured yourself out.
YOU were "despised and rejected."
YOU were "oppressed and afflicted."
Someone like me crucified YOU.
And YOU willingly gave yourself for me.
My heart's cry tonight - Lord, make me like you.
I am "a lost cause - an outcast - a grateful leper at your feet." (Casting Crowns),
and you have given me the power to make the lost cause and the outcast feel your Love.
Help me to always choose to let you pour yourself through me. Help me to remember your love, your grace, your mercy... the love, grace and mercy that you have always showered on me while giving me the free will to accept or reject it.
Teach me how to give myself away.
"He must become greater. I must become less."
~John 3:30
