{All You've Ever Wanted}

someone downstairs this early in the morning had turned the radio to full volume, stirring me from a deep sleep as I  rolled sleepily out from under my warm comforter, shivering, pulling a sweatshirt over my head...

.....only to suddenly stop dead in my tracks 

after all, what are the odds that the music floating up the staircase was the precise song I had found myself falling asleep to last night, after the frenetic sobs had subsided. 

"All You've ever wanted, all You've ever wanted, all You've ever wanted was my heart...
freedom's arms are open. my chains have all been broken. 
relentless love has called me from the start....
all You wanted was my heart" 

burying my forehead in my palms, I sat down heavily on the edge of my bed, letting the lyrics wash over me once more, still groggy from lack of sleep last night. 

I hadn't fallen asleep until well past 1 in the morning, coming face to face with my crying inability to accept a love freely offered, without feeling as though I need to somehow earn it. and looking back over my life, I shouldn't find it surprising that I have come away with the messages 'try harder/be better/do more if you would be worthy of love'. 

when it came to my parents, I considered the score even. I obey, and they love me. I disobey or displease them and I deserve punishment, and must atone for my misdeeds. Do good and they will love me. Otherwise, they won't. Don't be a burden, but support them when they need emotional support. Do housework, be a good student, earn their approval and affirmation. 

when it came to my friends, I help them when they are down. they help me when i am down. it is my responsibility to be a kind, considerate friend, to not over-tax them, to not burden them with my problems unduly, and to support them. Therefore i earn their love and care. 

when it came to mentors, I earn their approval through doing what they say is right. quit cutting. recover from my eating disorder. stop doing things that they say are wrong, and if i comply with all their expectations, then i will be able to be worthy of their time, effort, investment, and love. 

when it came to relationships, the formula was simple. Acquiesce. Submit. Do what they want, make them look good, lose weight and be perfect and meek and quiet and let them have whatever they want, and if you do all that, then you will ensure that he always loves you. otherwise it is your fault, your responsibility, if he stops loving you, and your job to earn it back. 

...and when it came to God? do all the right things, check all the boxes, live in constant fear of messing up, apologize for the very breath I take, punish myself when I feel I have let Him down or displeased Him, offer Him whatever He wants.... I am still trying to earn His love, because I cannot believe that it is possible for Him to love me. 

i cannot conceive of a love which would love me even when I do not love myself. I cannot wrap my mind around being wanted despite the fact that I mess up, am messed up, hurt people and will continue to do so in spite of my best efforts not to. 

and if you claim you love me? there must be something I am doing/have done/can do to earn it. something physical, material, substantial. something i can point to and say 'this makes me worthy', because I know I am not.  

but the song which has haunted me since last night's meltdown, begging him, begging Him to please let me earn their love only to be met with 'all I've ever wanted is your heart', smacks me again this morning, crying that 'freedom's arms are open...your chains have all been broken...relentless love has called, is calling you..and it doesn't want you to try harder, jump through more hoops, perform better, or make yourself perfect. all it wants, all it longs for, is your heart. who you are. just you' 

hashing it out with a friend later today, i confess that there is nothing which makes me angrier or more frustrated than that thought. I sense, rather than see, her smile. 

"In your mind you drastically fall short of being worthy of the love that's being given to you. and it frustrates you to no end because you cannot see what others see in you. you can't understand when looking at you, why they choose to love you."

she is uncannily accurate. if I can only halfway like me when I do all the things that i think are right, and make me look clean on the outside, then why in the world would anyone want my messy, mismatched, bloody, broken, holey heart? 

and I am sitting here, half in tears, typing, when the five year old brother breaks into my thoughts, holding out a 'scepter' staff, the other half of the curtain rod, as tall as he is. 

"touch it! touch it!" he cries gleefully. I comply, half smiling at his newest game. 

"now you have to give me something!" he announces. "like candy..or something..or whatever you have". 

my hand blindly reaches over, eyes still on his face, seizing on the first thing from my desk that it touches.

a small heart, shaped from plastic iron-on-beads, and without thinking I hold it out. 

"I have a heart?" 

His face breaks into a boyish grin. "Thank you!" and grabbing it in his free hand, he bestows a parting smile on me before skipping off. 

and God laughs, and pats me on the head. 

and i sigh, running fingers through my hair in bewildered frustration.  

what if what He really wants isn't what I do. what if what He wants is who I am? 

my heart? 

your heart?

no matter how busted or bruised or beat up or...plastic?...it is. 

what if when He looks at it, He sees beauty? 

because if we are His tapestry, His work of art, then all we would see from the inside is the wrong side of the work. the loose ends. the brokenness. the tangled string splashed across a canvas in a meaningless mess.  

but what if when He looks at us, He sees the right side. He sees the weaving as it is, but also as He is shaping it to be, and He sees the glory of the finished work when all I can see is the struggle and all I can wonder is why, why He would ever choose me. He sees the pattern He is working through the pain, and if the holy God of the universe knows all my sins and still wants me as I am, then dare I say no? 

dare I "turn away with a smile on my face, with this sin in my heart try to bury your grace" only to "alone in the night still call out for You, so ashamed of my life" my life, my one and given life which I cannot seem to throw away no matter how hard I try? 

what if there is nothing I can do to earn it? what if, like grace, love is free? freely given and freely received in gratitude to the Giver? 

what if...what if I am simply allowed to...be? to rest? to accept the love that is mine instead of endlessly chasing the things I think will make me worthy of it? 

what if all He's ever wanted is my heart...and He loves me anyways, just as I am? 

what if it's past time I stopped running and hiding and deflecting with do more/be more/try harder? 

what if i just..said...yes?