I started this blog as a way to publish one of my spoken words, My Surrender Moment, written in 2014. Two years later when my husband and I started a Christian ministry, I would occasionally post the studies that I wrote and taught our women’s group. At that point it kind of shifted into a biblical teaching blog.
Wow! We have made it a long way from there. Laceingrace has slowly transformed into a more and more authentic picture of my life with God. The smoke screen has dissipated revealing more truth overtime. Now there is nothing left hiding the real me from you all. In saying ‘real’ I don’t mean forced, brutal transparency in an attempt to relate to you and convert you. No, that girl wasn’t authentic in her motives either. Now there’s a genuine glimpse in the many agendas that once weighed me down! I’ve thrown them all away and taken on a new burden. The one that isn’t really a burden at all. I am yoked up with Jesus and just enjoying Him. Really and truly enjoying Him in every part of myself.
In all honesty I have no idea where my blog is going now (or my life), and I’m not really sorry about that. I have little to offer you except myself. This is me. Not the me who wants to lead you, or fix you, just the broken me who needs Jesus as much as you do. So I hope you will still have me, but I will be okay if you don’t. And I don’t write that in an abrasive or hostile way, I’ve simply cast off my people-pleasing hat. I’ve burned out the lie whispering that the real me isn’t good enough for you, or Jesus, or for accomplishing His commission. I thought I had to be this falsely perfect girl to make an impact. That lie is oh so damaging, internally and outwardly. This is my public confession that I will actively stop trying to save the world. That is falsely glorified idolatry. Jesus already did that for you and I. What I will do is this..I will continue to press into Christ, to tap into His river of life and allow it to overflow to you all. I won’t conjure up what isn’t mine. I won’t pretend.
Here is the real me. Here is the overwhelming grace of God working in my life. Here is the unconditional, unrelenting love of God working in my heart that just makes no sense to my human brain.
With that being said, no, I wasn’t always intentionally fake before. I think ‘fake’ becomes our default setting after so long of calloused hearts, confused self-expectations, and a plethora of other misfiring neurons. For example, when asked how you’re doing you reply with no hesitation “good!”. But what about the days when you’re not good? Who are you when no filter can cover up the shadows wrecking your heart?
The bottom line is that my soul has merely been on a journey home, a journey of peeling back the layers of myself to mold more completely with my Savior, to lay hold of that which He laid hold of for me. The closer I get, the more real I get. I have not yet fully arrived, but I have reached a new level that is closer. And that’s enough. So together, lets go deeper with Christ.
“What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith. I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.” (Philippains 3:7-14 NIV)
Here’s a cover I did over a song that speaks to me right where I am in this place and I pray it ministers to you as well- Save Me by Steffany Gretzinger.
frolicinfields 