This morning? Started back at 2 AM when a certain baby girl decided to forego any sort of slumber and talk to her feet and squawk at her mother's form for a couple of hours because sometimes a girl just needs to chat and it doesn't matter the time.
My mind was a little fuzzy and any sort of normal routine just crawled right back under the warm covers with me.
So, then I wonder - could my Morning Adoring be moved? Could it turn into an Evening Adoring instead? Maybe... I'm not giving them up, so could they be moved, just slightly, so that my night-owl brain could keep up and my mornings be spent more in quiet closet-prayer and Bible reading?
I think so.
Because, just when everything seems to slow down, when wait seems to be the word on our house and the move and when I take a deep breath and agree and pull out everything and begin to decorate and organize and sort and settle into our home here, Tony gets stopped on a weekend and presented with an option that still holds a tag with a clear "wait", just not as long...and my morning already scrambling and full screams out for a quiet meeting with just my Savior and my journal. So when my mind that has meditated on that one beautiful thing of Jesus all day needs some release with words tapped out onto a blank screen, I can do so in the quiet moments of a day done and over.
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Paul said in Ephesians 4:24, "...and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness." There is something about Paul that after years and years of despising him, I actually find compelling and maybe it's because I have messed up larger in my adult years then I ever did in my childhood years, but as a respected and devote Pharisee, he didn't outwardly need saving. Maybe that's why he hated Jesus so much - by focusing on getting the outsides right, he could more easily overlook his insides. And what does Jesus specialize in then to transform our dark and sin-full insides into lives that shine brightly with and for His glory?
He knew firsthand his sin - he didn't shrink from it, he didn't cover it in shame, he didn't fight to clear a tarnished reputation because to do so would be to protect his inner man which could only lead into more bondage. This man who hated Jesus and killed His disciples was powerfully transformed by the Transforming Savior and instead of being bogged down by everything he did, he fully embraced the new self he was given in the mercy and grace of what Jesus Christ had done.
So this past Sunday, as I walked through the crowded hallways of church and felt the attack of the Accuser ringing in my ears, when I let who I had been and what I had done wash over me in shame and regret, I wasn't walking in the grace that is already mine - and that's the thing - this new self that Paul talks of, the one created after the Likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness is already mine. Tuning my ears instead to the lies of satan is like walking around in the finest of jewels claiming that I have nothing valuable on me.
It's ludicrous.
Yes, I have failed - until I face Jesus and no longer breathe earth's air, I will fail. But that's the beauty of it - by embracing the gift He sacrificed everything to give, my life can bring Him glory as I tenaciously cling to The Creator of Me as New and live out my love for Him.
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It is mine, whether I choose to walk in that belief or not. It is mine if I choose to hear Your Voice or not. It is mine if everything and everyone else around me claims that I can never change...because I already have. You have already created me new - and not just a new Kimberley - but You created me new in Your very own likeness. That you would entrust the sacred and holy to a woman who is cracked and broken is a grace that is overwhelming and tender. You are so good and so loving and so patient with this heart who so often chooses my own way.
Creator of Me as New - thank You. Thank you for the refreshing mercy of new life and salvation and the gift of Your Spirit to enable me to walk in Your ways. So I cling to You and trust that when the enemy screams out my sins, Your whisper of grace and forgiveness will remind me of Whose I am. Keep me turned to You.
Amen.
