God Can Handle Your Worst

I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love.

Grunting, I manually lugged our beast of an ancient snowblower into position, pausing to swipe at my partially frozen bangs before starting back down a neighbor’s driveway.

I was grumpy. Aaron was traveling, so a task that falls firmly into his realm of duties was unexpectedly placed solely on me. The larger-than-normal pile of compacted snow left by the early morning snowplow seemed to sneer at me from the end of the driveway, daring me to attempt to move it. And the fact that I was plowing out two driveways with a massive, cumbersome machine I barely knew how to use meant that an ongoing small act of kindness—for a neighbor in the midst of their own crisis—was currently being performed with a grinchy heart. I told God exactly what I thought about all of the above as I worked.

The freedom to be brutally honest is one of the things I am most grateful for in talking to God. If God already knows that I’m a bit of a hot mess, what can be gained by pretending I’m not? Nothing. There is not one thing to lose and yet so much to gain.

God’s knowledge of my secret worst self means I get to be honest in a way I’m mostly not with my fellow humans. I get to be blunt and completely vulnerable as I pour out my thoughts and feelings with a refreshing rawness, knowing that he is safe and that I am loved.

That doesn’t mean I get to stay in ugly emotional spots or wallow in ongoing sin; it simply means I am safe to process all of it—the good, the bad, and the ugly—so that I can move past it, reframe the situation before me, and course correct if I’ve started to stray. Of all the good gifts our heavenly Father bestows upon us, this might be one of the least appreciated and most precious.

Julie

Today’s Act of Gratitude

Express your gratitude to God that you can trust him with your ugliest of uglies. But don’t stay there: allow him to guide you, show you a different perspective, and redeem the unredeemable.