"I get knocked down, but I get up again"

Today is Good Friday.

I wonder if us naming it “Good” feels like a knife in your back, Jesus?

I know I’d be p*ssed about it if I were you.

But luckily for everyone, I am not.

LOL.

I often don’t know what I want or who I truly am, but since I accepted you into my heart and nodded when you invited gently “Follow me”, I know this:

I AM YOURS.

You are the wind in my life, Lord. I can’t take a picture of you or draw you or describe what you LOOK like…but I hear you in everything. I feel you in everything and I see the results of what you touch in everything around me.

I look back on my life and on the times I felt closest to you and they all have one thing in common – they were the times when I was the most alone, the most hurt, the most attacked, bullied, shut down, pushed aside – that’s when you showed up the most powerfully and stayed the closest to me.

I remember it as if it just happened – the first Sunday at Church when the entire Church community knew I had cheated on my husband.

I’d lived my whole life wanting the approval of everyone – but that Sunday, I knew I’d blown it.

AND IT WAS THE FIRST TIME IN MY LIFE WHERE I DIDN’T GIVE A SHIT.

That Sunday was simultaneously the worst and best day of my life, Lord Jesus.

The worst because my sin was laid bare and I couldn’t hide it.

But the best because I could feel your hand gently holding mine on my walk to Church that frosty morning. I could feel your arm around me as I stood in the Church pew rather than raised up and viewed with adoration on the stage as I was so used to. I hadn’t felt your presence so close in my heart when I was leading Church – but when I was a sinner – dirty, broken and exposed…that’s when you drew near.

You’ve met me at my most broken, Lord.

When I’m on the mountain tops rejoicing, oh I feel you – but as if you were far away smiling and of course, happy for me.

It’s when I’m face down in the gutter that I feel you the most…cradling me gently in your arms and telling me tenderly that everything will be okay.

To be that ONE lost sheep that you found, put around your shoulders and gleefully carried back to the fold – those are the best days of my life, Lord Jesus.

Thank you for loving me. Thank you for saving me. Thank you for picking me up and dusting me off. Thank you for HUGGING ME and holding me close when my heart was so broken I thought I’d never recover.

Thank you for being beaten, broken, taunted, mocked, laughed at, spat at and torn open for me. You are the holiest of Holy’s and yet you endured all of that so that I could live.

Thank you that I get to listen to waves, that I get to instagram millions of photos of the sunsets because I love them so much. Thank you for stars that you merrily decorate the skies with. Thank you for children and how wonderous they are, for friends and how steadying they are and for my husband – how his generosity knows no bounds and the comfort his warmth, love and care continually provide in our lives.

Today is only GOOD because you are in it, Lord Jesus.

I love you and I’m so grateful.

That is all.