Today has been such an amazing day, so I thought I'd take some time to share how awesome my Father is. I've been such a slacker for the last couple of months in keeping up with this blog, so I sincerely apologize to the (maybe) one person who actually reads this.

God has been changing me over the last year, and I don't think it could have come at a better time. I used to be the most legalistic, self-righteous Christian you would have ever met. Now, don't think that I was just hard on others because of what they were doing wrong. I was doubly hard on myself for everything I did wrong. I was an equal opportunity legalist!

This may sound really strange and crazy to some people, but the beginning of my transformation began when God sang to me. (I wrote about this briefly in an earlier blog). I had gotten so burned out striving and trying so hard to be who I thought God and everyone else REQUIRED me to be. I was ready to throw in the towel...to say the heck with organized religion period. Don't misunderstand me. I loved God more than anything, but I was constantly feeling like I could never measure up or follow all the rules well enough. It was horrible.

I was in my car one day while we were living in Germany, and this song came on through my Ipod. The chorus goes something like this: "I am captivated by you, Captivated by you. May my life be one unbroken gaze, fixed upon the beauty of your face." Awww...so pretty, right? I thought so, but it didn't really touch my heart until later that night. I couldn't get the song out of my head all day, and that night when I went to bed, it was still there. I just allowed it to play in my head, hoping that I'd just drift off to sleep. God wouldn't let me got to sleep, however. He had something to say before I decided to quit Him altogether. I began to talk to Him, something I'd not done much of lately. I felt sort of crushed by Him and didn't realize it. God basically just said, "Hush and listen, woman!" Then the song began to play in my head again..."I am captivated by you..." In that moment, all of my walls came crashing down. He was singing to me! He was captivated by me!!! What? I was nothing...filthy rags, on a good day. I'd never heard God like this before. I didn't know what to do, what to think. But as soon as I started to analyze what I'd just heard, I drifted off to the most peaceful sleep I'd had in a long time.

The next morning, I woke up thinking, "Did this really happen? Am I just being crazy ridiculous?" There was no way around it. My heart was changed, softened. I realized that all of the striving to earn God's acceptance and love was futile. He already loved me so much that there was nothing I could do to reverse it. It's like Pastor Mark said this morning at church, "We didn't choose God; He chose us." How unworthy am I that He would do such a thing?!

So, now it's over a year later, and I feel like I'm still trying to wrap my head around grace and mercy. I feel like in everything I do and say, I want God's grace to be evident. I look at people so differently now, too, and I feel like I need to apologize to anyone that I may have judged harshly. I am so sorry for making anyone feel like less than a precious jewel in God's eyes. I guess you can take solace in the fact that I made myself as miserable (if not more miserable) as I made you...haha!

My internal struggle now is not being angry at the people in my younger life who made me feel like God could only love me if I was completely blameless; that if I did anything wrong, I was essentially condemned to hell. I mean, I seriously believed that if I did ANYTHING wrong, God would be angry at me and would literally throw me into the fiery pit. I had it so wrong!!! Today, I feel free to live for Him. My walk feels more pure. I don't try so hard to follow all the rules, but the rules are somehow followed because I'm truly so in love with Him.

Pastor Mark talked about following our dreams this morning, and I wanted to share mine with the whoever reads this. My dream is that when I worship through singing that people feel the way I felt that day when He sang to me. I want you to hear God's voice telling you how much He loves you and how proud He is to be your Father. If I never have an opportunity to sing in front of thousands of people, that's more than ok, but if one person comes to the realization that Jesus is real and His love is unconditional, I will have fulfilled what I was put on this earth to do.

Here's a video for you that I just love...kinda sums it all up, I think.