I walked into church this morning not feeling good enough.
Feeling like there was no way the man sitting a few rows in front of me would ever be interested in me.
That I wasn't:
tall enough
skinny enough
blonde enough
stylish enough
I lacked any self confidence that would make up for some of my physical lackings.
As I sat in church and felt bad about myself my pastor started speaking about Col 2:13-23.
Usually I pay attention and take detailed notes as if I am in a class and will someday have a test over everything I have learned. But today I spaced out. I let the lack of sleep and coffee and self worth take over.
I laughed at Pastor Mark's comedy not because I thought it was funny but because I felt I had to.
And then he said, "Therefore do not let anyone judge you." and I started paying attention.
He talked about legalism and the measuring stick we use to see how we are doing.
He talked about how we do things for the benefit of others, not for the benefit of God.
Then, THEN he talked about how we should use the measuring stick to measure against God's perfection. And how that leads not to trying harder to fix it ourselves but to a deeper dependence on God.
He summed it up by saying that we don't have to live up to the human standard.
And I smiled. A big dorky inside joke smile.
God knows me, He KNOWS me. He knows what I need to hear and when I need to hear it. He knows that if He tries and tells me something early or later, that it will go in one ear and out the other.
He knows that if I would have walked out of service feeling the way I walked in, that the rest of the day would have been lost. I would have pouted in the corner at our leaders meeting, and backed out of leading this year. I would have come home and bawled about my brother and sisil selling their house and moving in less than a month. I would have drunk myself silly that my parents left shortly after I showed up.
But none of that happened. Because someone who loves me more than I can imagine made sure that I heard the exact words that I needed to hear at the exact moment I needed to hear it.
I am beyond blessed.
