New Resolve. (Tehillah.)

In calling myself a failure, I call you a failure. I am saying that you made a mistake when you created me. And that is a lie, because you made me, and you know me, and when you finished making me, you stepped back to look at your creation, and you pronounced me good.

My mistakes & failures don't make me a failure, they make me human. And that's okay. I'm allowed to be human, I'm allowed to be imperfect. Even though I feel like I need to try harder, to be more, to be better than I am.

It's like I have to do better than anyone else, just to be worthy of notice - never mind worthy of love.

That doesn't make sense. How can that even begin to work as an approach to life?

There Must Be More Than This

I have to work so hard, just to achieve the kind of success other people just get. God, my relationship with you, and my creative pursuits... those are the only things that come remotely easily to me (and you know how discontented I can feel about our relationship).

I need help in every other area of my life. Help me to figure this out, God. Help me to find solutions to these problems I have - people to look after things for me, to teach me how to handle them myself... I don't want things to get this big for me again.

It just distracts me.

The Stand

My Offering

I am reminded of the first picture you gave me - the one that I knew was for me, from you, the one of the field. And that reminds me that I've been crowned with praise & gratitude... that name you gave me.

How awful that I let that crown be sullied and dirtied and scuffed by my own selfishness and pride and despair. But you... you not only pick me up out of the dirt, you retrieve my crown, you dust us both off, you shine the crown, and then you place it back on my head.

God you aren't just the lifter of my head, you are my king, my protector, my guide - you are my head!

And this crown, of praise and of gratitude, this crown is my glory, for your glory.

And I wear it with much humility.