Accepted?

People often ask me about my tattoos/piercings, so I decided to give the stories behind them all here on my blog. In order to do that I have to back WAY up to just before I surrendered my everything to Christ in me. My journey into the grace walk was not an easy one by any means! Having posted much on this before I won't go into the whole story again, but I have more to add.

I was terrified to yield to Christ. Absolutely terrified. Before I got saved I was afraid to become a hypocrite. I was afraid to be pressed into the particular Baptist mold that I had witnessed all my life. Then on the brink of abandoning my all to Jesus, I was afraid that once he had me he would throw me away. I couldn't possibly believe that he could accept all of me exactly how I was. How could he? I was hopelessly flawed. Yeah, yeah... I'd read all the stuff Andrew Murray, A.W.Tozer, Steve McVey, and Watchman Nee had written on being dead and God no longer seeing that stuff. And I knew the book of Romans inside and out: there's no condemnation in Christ, he sees me just as though I've never sinned, I'm accepted in the beloved, he'll never leave me nor forsake me, etc. I wasn't convinced. Sure, he saved me and that was pretty fantastic! But wasn't he kind of under contract for that? He died on the cross for redemption, and salvation was offered freely to all who would believe. It was a given. Acceptance however? That was another ballgame altogether. He just couldn't love me when it was all said and done. I envisioned it all too frequently... God would beckon me to come to him and place my life in his hands and I would do so with many tears. He would than laugh maniacally and say something along the lines of, "I've got you where I want you!" This never ended well - there was a lot of crushing and bruising involved.

I had an idea. Maybe not my brightest idea ever, but in my mind I had to formulate a test. I had always wanted to get my belly button pierced for as long as I could remember (super cute!!!) and had even asked Chris if I could many times. If I got a piercing God could either choose to abandon me or accept me anyway. He could either heap loads of guilt on me or shower me with love. I knew people who would never talk to me again if they knew about it, and the question in my mind was, "Is God like that?" So that's exactly what I did. I went out and got it pierced. Strange, I didn't feel different afterwards... In fact, I felt very free in a good way.

Two days passed and the axe didn't fall. I felt the wooing of the Spirit leading me to fall into his arms, and for once I thought maybe I believed him. If you have read my blog you know the rest of the story, for that is the night I knelt on my living room floor and did just that: I entrusted all that I was, all that I had, all that I would be, everything to Him. It's funny... it was so effortless. All those months of fighting it, and it was one of the easiest things I've ever done. You see, surrender is not something you "DO," It's something HE does. I simply laid down yielding to him, and he filled me up. That's it. I felt acceptance! I felt love!

So that's it in a nutshell. My belly piercing was nothing more than a fleece to see if God truly accepted me or if he could only accept me based on who I was. My silly attempt to figure out God! Apparently God didn't care one way or the other, all he wanted was for me to enjoy the perfect union he purchased for me on the cross as fully as was possible. Salvation was far more than the gift of life. It was the gift of LIFE in me! Christ in me! He desired a relationship with me! Wow.