Let's Be Honest

" You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart. " Jeremiah 29:13

There was a lot leading up to this point of my life, but when I sat down on the couch with my coffee this morning and pulled out my Bible, I had a lot on my mind.
 One reason I hate finals week so much is that I feel guilty for spending time in the Word over spending time studying my textbooks. However, I've been terrible at being consistent in my quiet times all semester, so I can't even be mad at finals week because it's not like it's making me break a routine. 

Phew. *Take deep breath* Where to even start, Lord? I'm here. Nothing to offer you, but I'm at least sitting still on my couch and making a little effort to spend some time with you. 

I wasn't sitting there very long ( hadn't even cracked open my Bible) when that phrase was whispered in the stillness of my heart. "If you seek me, you will find me. If you seek me with all of my heart." That's how I heard it anyways.. I realize it's worded differently than the translation I learned the verse in.. but I mean, I'm pretty sure the Lord was just being specific to my heart at the time. 
Thus I determined that, this morning, I was going to hunt for God. 

Not that He has been hiding or anything, but I've definitely lost sight of Him lately.. mostly because of me, obviously. Because I burnt out and gave up and have literally been ducking out in a foxhole the last long while. And honestly, I haven't even wanted to seek the Lord because I'm pretty sure it would mean crawling out of my foxhole and getting going back at that whole Christian life thing, and I just... I just can't. 

I think I've had this idea that maybe I've just been a sulking child over the tragedy that has been my competence as a leader and follower this semester and while I gave in to giving up, no one else did and I imagine that the Lord saw me quit and said, "Leave her. She can re-join us when she gets over herself. Everyone else keep doing what you're doing."

Which, come to think of it, doesn't really sound like the Lord, but I mean.. I gave up when the going was toughest, which was probably the point I was needed most, and... well... it wasn't one of my proudest moments. I guess I just feel like I disappointed the Lord. And people. Lots of people. I'm sorry, guys.. I can't be Jesus for you. I'm a terrible Jesus. I'm the worst. 

Or maybe it's not even that the Lord didn't bother to come over and pick me up so much as I decided to run when I realized I was failing in every aspect of everything. 

This morning, before making any attempts at sitting down for a quiet time, I had flipped open my Bible to 1 Corinthians chapter one and noticed a verse I'd highlighted that said, "He will keep you strong to the end, so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ," next to which I had written "No burn out :)" in the margin. That's when I started thinking, "geez I must have a talent for doing things wrong because I'm at the end and my strength was gone months ago."

So, the Lord told me to seek Him and I agreed. As if He had called out from some great distance away and challenged me to at least give it a go... if worse comes to worst, I'd simply be in the same place I'd started in. 

Funny though, I realized I have a great fear of coming up empty. By that I mean, when I make a plan to meet someone, and I show up and they don't. Or at least they don't for like 15, 20, 25 minutes. I hate that. Like... there are some serious shards of broken hopes in the depths of my heart from not being worth showing up for. I'm not mad at everyone who has said they would come and didn't. At least I hope I've forgiven them. I just am not very good at forgiving myself. For not being valuable enough to even want to spend with me the 15, 20, 30 minutes that was lost in simply not coming til later. 

And I know that's not true. Of course it's not. I'm late to things too sometimes and it's not because I don't think my friends are worth it, I'm just a poor time manager, or things take longer than expected. I get it. It's okay. 

However, it makes me a little nervous about trusting God. Crazy, right? Of course you can trust God. He never lies. Well... I'm me. And trusting God is hard sometimes. 

So, I pulled out my pen and my prayer journal and some Bibles (yes plural) and I told the Lord, "Okay.. I'm coming. Just be there when I get there. Oh my goodness, please be there." 

Where does one even start? Gosh I don't know. I mean, I start all over again all the time, but I'm still bad at it. Well, let's start by finding that verse that I heard whispered to my heart this morning, shall we? Where is that verse even? New Testament? I'm pretty sure it's in the Gospels... John maybe? Didn't Jesus say that? Seek and find? Sounds Jesus-y to me. 

Thank God for google. Old testament prophet, right after the well quoted "I know the plans for you" verse. Right.. I should have known that... 

I love what I found in the verse after the one that the Lord had spoken to me..
"I will be found by you, declares the Lord, and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you, declares the Lord, and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile."

"I will be found by you." What a relief! He'll be there! Oh thank God. When ever I get there, He'll be there. That is a serious comfort to my shredded-to-pieces heart right now. 
What's more, than that, is I realized the whole entire reason I've come to this point of "burn out" is the whole battle against worth and being "good enough."

I wrote, seriously 11 months ago, a whole entire blog about being Worth it. A whole blog about how the Lord fights for our worth even though Satan would seek to tell us that we are not worth it and we are not good enough. Well,  LOL ...I'm about as far from perfect as anyone could get and it turns out I'm basically bad at believing the Truth a lot of times. I'm not a great Christian at all. 

Me.. I'm just...I'm not. That's me. Not. 

And God.. well, after I rant about how much I'm not, he's like, " I am! *wink*" "I am enough. I am your worth it. I am here. I am waiting. I am.. I just am." 

I'll spare you the great many details of everything in my life that would point to me coming back to this way too familiar battle for worth, but it's been a struggle. And like I said, I gave up fighting for myself months ago. And everything after that has just hammered the concept home. 

But, oddly enough, the battle is still taking place, even though I'm not participating. Someone is fighting for me even when I don't see the point of it. Somehow, deep down, I know my worth has nothing to do with my external capabilities (or lack there of). I mean, I know God loves me. Cliche? Yes. But true.

There's a little quote from a Shirley Temple movie where she says, "I'm going home to my mother. She loves me!" That's how I feel. I mean, if nothing else, The Lord will love me for no other reason than He is really great and doesn't care that I fail at life.

I love *that*. I love that he is just waiting for me to come home. Not even just waiting, but he came for me before I even made a move towards him. Not that I'm even crawled out of my fox hole yet.. I'm not.  Nope.. I'm not. But he's there. And that will be enough.