good friday

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The only explanation for the past 7 years of my life, the transformation I have undergone involving the literal deadness of my soul coming into living a life full of love and a hunger for selflessness and compassion, is that Jesus is God, Jesus died with my sin once and for all, and lives again, and he lives in me, and I have been born again, pure and blameless before God, who loves me deeply- not some days, but every day.
I’m excited to share with people that it was downright impossible for a person like me back before I accepted Jesus into my heart to become anything joyful, anything useful, anyone worth love. Jesus paid it all. It was impossible for me to conquer that death that I was born into this world in, but Jesus did it for me, because he loves me.
Crazy, suicidal, sexually broken, hopeless and purposeless, turned into someone who lives to love for the sake of letting other people know the kind of healing Jesus brought me, because I can testify because of this intense personal experience I have had with him- day to day experiences, but also just 7 years of testing and confirming that God’s word is true, and God’s love is real, and God’s love is absolutely unfailing, and he absolutely loves us, and he absolutely paid it all so that we can be in that perfect relationship with him again- that sin is absolutely real, but that God’s love is more than enough to cover my sin, as far as the curse is found in the span of my soul and mind- he is eternal, and he is good. I have so many stories, and not because of my own wisdom or my own discipline, but purely because he has interceded time and time again in all of my difficult decisions, in all of my relationships, even in all of my schoolwork, and in all of the dark nights where I felt alone, dirty, unworthy, isolated and aimless. he has reassured me time and time again that there WILL be trouble in this world, but that he has overcome it all for my sake- that it is not my own doing that makes me right in God’s eyes, and able to come to him with all of my weariness and emptiness, but that God gave this gift of love to me, he gave Jesus as the way back to him, and that it is free and without conditions. all I have to do is believe and receive it,and be transformed by it. he walks with me every day, and i can also testify to the fact that the days when I want to edge God out of my life and choose not to remember that the things he wants for me are for my own good- when I choose to isolate myself and do my own thing without asking him to bless my way and give me peace and wisdom in all i do, those days are horrible and sometimes i just have to shower, and lie in my room and contemplate what my life would be like if I had the guts to do what I wanted so badly to do back before Jesus saved me. I realize that no matter how far I sink now, Jesus is always the solid foundation beneath my feet, and he will not let me drown. he LOVES me and day after day these 7 years he has drilled it into my heart and my mind that the things of this world are fading, fleeting and unsatisfying, but his love will never leave me or forsake me. without him in my life I am incredibly emotionally and psychologically unstable- but I look around me and know that I am absolutely not the only one. I want people to know this amazing saving love that I have been so blessed by such amazing grace to know as intimately as I have…. I never want to convert my friends for the sake of converting them, it is because i love them so deeply and care for them so deeply because God has revealed to me in such a vivid way that we are ALL broken, crushed, dead and hopeless beneath our sin. but just as much as he has shown me the brokenness of this world, he has shown me the power of Jesus in my life- what letting God love me can do to transform EVERYTHING in my life…. school, money, relationships, love, school, work, sleep, and how I spend my free time. his provisions for me align my actions… my actions according to his will align my purpose. all I do, I do out of joy because I love him because he first loved me, and I love my friends because without asking I already know that when it comes down to it, we all have something in common- that we are entirely and eternally broken beyond our own repair. and past that, we have something else in common- that Jesus loves us and died for us because he came down from heaven to dwell among us, and know us deeply, intimately, personally. who would do that for me? who would do that for you? leave the most perfect, beautiful place in all of existence to come to where I am to cry with me, laugh with me, walk with me.

He came to me, came to know me and love me deeply. he took my hands. he took all of the crap in my life, all of the disease in my soul, and took it into the grave with him. he stayed dead for three days. he was without sin- a disease that we are all born with, the wages of which are death. but he took mine and paid my penalty. he conquered death, came alive again, and he lives now- and he is in me. I live because he lives in me and his blood runs in my veins. Life is worth living now just because he lives.


He didn’t just die with our sin, but he told it who was boss. he left it dead in the grave, once and for all, a final and eternal payment to mend an eternal and final separation from God’s love.

I love Jesus and I thank God every day for not forgetting about me, for not leaving me here in my sin to die, even when I know in the big picture of things- I don’t deserve a single thing. but he gave me everything. and he wants to give YOU everything, and you can have it this very second, if you just tell him you want it, and to give it to you, and you believe that Jesus paid it all.
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