Something happens when you come alive and are set free from fear.

You realize existence is messy and you wouldn’t have it any other way.

Control is an illusion, a grasping at the air only to fall over into the dirt.

This reality: It’s a bloody, gritty reality.

Broken hearts and broken bones are just a way of life.

So you begin to realize you don’t have to expend your energy trying to avoid the mess.

(You breathe a sigh of relief.)

Once upon a time, you had this idea everything would be smooth because you were trying to say and do all the right things.

The universe seemed to align and God was on your side, all because you were supposedly “moral” enough. Your were “holy” enough to avoid being like those others you judged and pitied.

Any trials or pain that happened you blamed on some outside force of evil.

Or, it was God testing your faith.

But you were terrified to admit when you did wrong, you couldn’t believe you still be struggled with wanting to lose yourself in something you’ve been told is so wrong, so you denied your desires instead of understanding why you have them in the first place.

But they didn’t go away.

You can only shove down your humanity so much. 

So when all that inevitably blew up in your face, you couldn’t help but feel a little…crazy.

You may have tried again and again, thrusting yourself into an endless cycle of failure and guilt, but when you finally realized it’s all a sham, you got angry.

So you fought back a little. You did something rebellious.

They may have looked at you and thought,

“There’s another one lost to the darkness.”

But what they didn’t realize was, this was all part of your journey to grace.

So you broke and screamed and let go and let all the pain in.

You accepted the fact you are poor and dirty and dead.

You decided to live a little dangerously.

To embrace instead of exclude.

To dare to be open and see the truth all around you.

To be fully alive.

To feel all your emotions.

To question what you always thought to be true.

To allow your heart to be broken.

And really, that was the best thing you could have done.

Because let me tell you, if you spend your life trying to guard yourself, trying to behave, trying to fit into some religious mold, you will cheat yourself out of truly experiencing life.

You will cheat the world out of what kind of beauty can explode when a human being is actually genuine.

And what happens when a genuine human being allows the spirit of a perfect and loving God to be life within them.

Because God doesn’t want a robot.

He just wants you.

Real change comes not in us trying harder, but in giving up and letting go and realizing the beautiful and terrible truth,

We are broken and we can’t fix ourselves. 

Exactly.

That’s the entire point.

That’s what Jesus is for.

*This post was originally posted on the blog of Brooke Gale Louvier, All Things Are Becoming New.