i see a little bit.

Ever since retreat, I feel like I've been scared to write on this blog.

For the sole reason that I feel like I'm somehow making myself feel holy or rationalizing the problems I have by pouring it out through this outlet. But now I realize the truth: if I boast, I boast in Christ.

I am where I am, I speak what I speak, I do what I do because of Christ. To know that I am capable of so much worse, and knowing this Christ still loves me makes me see that the world isn't made up of the good, the bad, and the ugly, but instead, it's all ugly.

Yet the beauty of unconditional love is that such love holds true even when the target is a disaster waiting to happen. I've been wanting so much change in myself, in people... and when it comes down to it and I discover all I've been doing is floundering about in the sea trying to somehow propel myself to the surface (and I know how this feels in real life... confession: I can't swim), what's the use? I might as well let go and let someone pull me out instead of wasting my strength; having false hope.

And so I want to let go. Of my own life, and no longer do I want to have to see people and hope that they'll change. What I want instead of change is for them to experience the deep love of Christ that covers over them. For if I boast, I boast in Christ alone.

It is true, I'm an insecure wreck. If security means finding my identity in Christ, all I've wanted is for my name, Chris, to be the thing that people value. I wanted to discover and earn my own worth... and doing well was never good enough. Perfectionism is an understatement, because what I wanted was to be Christ-like, not to have Christ live in me. If my identity is found in Christ, then my actions will show it - not because I have the capacity to do such good things, but because Christ is living in me and He is changing me and producing the fruit of the Spirit. For if I boast, I boast in Christ alone.

"Don't trust in Jesus, trust in yourself" was chalked on an emergency calling booth on the Diag during the summer. To whoever wrote it: I've tried it, bud, and it definitely doesn't work out in the end. I fooled myself into thinking I was rising... but I didn't know which way was up, and I was just sinking in the end...