Hephzibah

I'm pretty sure that somewhere along the line I missed a memo.
It was the one that outlined some of the finer "how-to" points of womanhood... I don't know when it was handed out - maybe I was supposed to get it when we watched those "boys in that room, girls in the other" movies in grade school.
But I'm sure I missed a memo.
My friend Jill wrote a great post the other day that shocked me. See somehow I had decided that I just hadn't gotten my "I'm a grownup" badge because I wasn't married and mommy. I figured that still living solo in my solo apartment was what was keeping me feeling like a perpetual college student.
OH CRUD... maybe it's the fact that I AM a perpetual college student that has me feeling that way??!!??
Regardless when I read her post yesterday I realized again that no one feels as together as they look. When I used to teach one of my favorite reminders to people was that we compare other people's shiny outside persona to our deep intimate knowledge of ourselves.
Let's face it - no one, knowing their deep dark secretey (sorry spellcheck I don't care if it ain't a word...) places, can ever match up to someone else's shiny outside show.
Maybe that is why I so often fight to be who I am inside and out. Mind you I'm not going to spill every fault I've got. But I always want to be the kind of person that SHOUTS God's grace because, let's face it, this gal as been given a whole lotta grace.
You know who shouts grace to me when I think about them?

David - man after God's own heart... but also a calculated murderer, liar, cheater, schemer and adulterer.

Moses - led God's people from captivity... murderer - chicken - who even after seeing God in a burning bush still wasn't convinced that God could use him. "Hey God... how about Aaron.. he likes talking to people... I'll still go... but wouldn't you rather have him do your talking?"

Saul/Paul - leader of the early church - writer of much of the encouragement in the New Testament... multiple murder - torturer of Christians

Rahab - used to bring the Israelites into the promised land and in the genealogy of Jesus... prostitute

You seeing my pattern? God never used the person who was "most likely to succeed." God was and is all about taking messed up, frail humans who are no-one and using them to shine His glory and grace.

It gives me hope that I cannot express. Why?
Because the grace that Moses, David, Paul, Rahab and countless others received is just as fresh today.
Though we may feel completely unworthy, when our useless and frail lives are placed in His hands they can shout His glory.

There is nothing that you have done that can knock you out of that running. He loves you.

I'm thinking tonight that it doesn't matter how I feel. Yesterday's mistakes are past.
Tomorrow is a day waiting for me to wake up and be renewed by His life and grace.
It's more than I can take in honestly... because I am a woman who is sorely in need of some grace and renewal.
So tomorrow I am going to press on to the prize that is set before me. I'm going to keep running the race until it is finished. I am going to work on being Hephzibah (God's delight is in her) instead of Mara (bitter).
Regardless of anything else that I do, or do not accomplish in this life I desperately want to make sure that the end  it can be said:

Gina - Hephzibah - though her faults and failures were beyond listing, His grace was sufficient