[Absolute, The Fray]

I'm in awe of how consistently God's word to me is grace.  Last night my husband and I had a rough argument, and afterward I was hurt and frustrated and angry, basically dwelling in the land of sin, and I heard the clear call from God to run to Him in need and repentance, to allow Him the opportunity to show me how to walk in humility and love.

My response?

Quite literally these four tragic words:  " I don't WANT to."

And that was that.  I escaped into a two hour long episode of a TV show online and refused to deal with any of it.

This morning my Boaz took me out on an A.M. date to Starbucks where we talked about how sinful we were last night... and as Jesus led us we excavated some carefully buried sin in our marriage.  Jason gently explained my role in this sin, and I became sullen and angry and chose to turn inward in self-loathing and self-pity instead of looking upward to my God.

And then, the lies.

The lies came so suddenly, without warning.  It was a full-on attack.  With terrible clarity they assaulted me from every direction, every possible angle:

I am just a fat loser.
Jason should have married someone else.
Jason would be better off with someone else.  He deserves someone the opposite of me.
I should cheat on him so he'll have a reason to leave me.
No one would ever have an affair with me because I'm so fat.  I should just die instead.
Jason would be better off if I were dead.
I'm fat and ugly and every problem in our marriage is my fault.
Jason's sinful response is my fault.
I'm worthless.  Empty.  Meaningless.  
I will sit here like a statue and not tell Jason any of this.  
I'll pull away from him, cold and unfeeling and let this marriage die.
I will.  I'll make him want to run from me so I get what I deserve- broken loneliness.
I'm a worthless sinner and nothing will get better because nothing can.
I'm worthless and alone, as I deserve to be.

Those thoughts were so clear... it was as if they were on a grand Times Square marquee and I could read them as they scrolled by, accusing me, enslaving me.

Once, when I was nine, I was mocked at the local pool for not knowing how to swim.  Truth be told, my family was too poor to afford the lessons and my parents didn't really have the patience nor desire to teach me themselves.  But the pride of man, even in a stubborn elementary age girl, is a powerful thing and I declared that I could swim, so boldly that I hoped it would damn any audacity said mockers might have to even question my integrity.  It backfired, increasing their will to prove me foolish and wrong, to belittle me for even desiring acceptance from them.  When dared to jump off the diving board I said of course I would because I so yearned to be in their favor and was so horribly terrified of being seen for what I was- a lonely and abused little girl desperate for someone- anyone- to just love me.

After much fear and trepidation, walking out to what felt like imminent death at the end of six feet of springboard, I convinced myself that I'd float to the top and "swim" (doggy paddle was the extent of my talent, but certainly this would suffice, or so I told myself) to the ladder and all would be well.  So, I jumped.  Full on jumped as high and far as I could.

As suddenly as I jumped I was at the bottom of the pool, thrashing with everything I had...

Today I felt helpless, flailing under the crushing weight of an ocean of lies.  Both at age nine and today, in the Green Lake Starbucks at the age of 27 (9x3, and 9 is 3 squared and 27 is 3 cubed, interestingly enough) I found myself drowning.

I truly was today.

I was drowning.

I'd stood on the shore of temptation, thought it felt nice when the waters nibbled at my toes, and thus I had chosen to wade in... and found myself caught up in a riptide called The Enemy and it was pulling me under and out into the currents of the sea of lies, of which Satan is master.  Like a marionette with severed strings I felt him grasping for every one, yanking on the knee-string while screaming, "YOU ARE WORTHLESS", and gleefully heckling when my leg jerked out from under me, sending me sprawling to the floor and busting my face on the pavement in the process.  With the pull of the wrist-string he bellowed, "JASON IS BETTER OFF IF YOU ARE DEAD", and his evil joy was evident when my own fingers ominously drew an invisible line across my throat.   Satan reached for my bloodied heart string, and he jerked it with vigor, venom dripping from his voice as he howled, "YOU ARE WORTHLESS AND ALONE AND YOU DESERVE IT.  YOU EARNED IT." His wrath that I am in Christ, thus not completely under his control as master manipulator, was palpable.  I could feel the bitterly cold bile of Satan's rage literally gripping the back of my throat, and I was paralyzed and unable to move.

True to broken marionette form I had no choice but to receive, to feel, to accept.

When I was in the pool, I remember realizing that no amount of panic would ever compensate for the fact that I didn't know how to swim.  Desire to be above water, yearning to feel the sweetness of fresh air hit my burning lungs, will to live, would never get me above water.  I didn't have the option of getting out on my own.

I was going to drown.

So, with a tragic solemnity, I received my fate, felt sadness for the life I would never live and accepted that my foolish choice in an attempt to earn temporary acceptance, a cheapened form of love, would cost me my life.  I stopped fighting to live and simply sank to the bottom.  I looked up toward the top of the water, the sun's rays broken by the rippling waves created by a couple hundred kids enjoying the freedoms of Summer vacation, and thought, so clearly that I remember it to this day, "So this is what it's like to know I am going to die."

Today, I sat on the couch in our favorite secret upstairs nook at our local Starbucks, and embraced my certain fate- the crumbling of my marriage to one void of love, and I would end up abandoned, broken, worthless, and alone, and I deserved it because that's what I'm meant to know in life.  That's what I've earned.  The sea of lies raged and I simply allowed myself to quit trying to find victory in a fight I could never win, for lack of ability, and I began to sink.  Soberly, with an unnerving calm I sat, still as a statue save for intermittent breathing, staring blankly ahead as my husband called out to me to tell him what I was thinking, what was happening in my mind.  I could see his face above the water line, distorted by the storm, but I didn't know how to get to him, streams of silent tears chasing one another down my cheeks as I embraced the sea of lies and welcomed the certain death.

At the bottom of the pool, when I was nine, my calm reverie of impending death was shattered when the lifeguard on duty yanked me up and before I could process it I was gasping for air, my head above water as he swam me to the edge of the pool.  A fellow lifeguard on duty helped pull me up and the world was a blurred haze, one action incapable of discernment from the next, as they checked my vitals and made sure I was ok.  I really was- I was shaken up, fatigued, but otherwise quite all right.  I guess in my resignation to welcome death, in my moment of accepting that hope itself had died, I had forgotten about the lifeguards.  But they were there the whole time, looking for anyone in a time of need, ready to do their duty and rescue a drowning child, regardless of whether said child made a foolish decision and their time of dire need was of their own doing.

This morning I was done fighting.  I just gave up.  And then... I was so desperate for Jesus, fully aware of my depravity, the lies I have believed my entire life, and my need for His power to set me free.  With my entire heart I cried out to Him, "Jesus, save me!  I'm drowning in the lies."  He yanked me up, set my feet on the Rock of Truth, wrapped me in a warm robe of His acceptance and love, and said to me, repeatedly, these truths:

You are my beloved daughter.
I chose you before the beginning of time.
In your mother's womb I knit you together, knowing every day of your life, knowing you are one of My elect.
I have adopted you into My family.  You are an heir with Christ.
Everything that is Christ's- all good, all blessings, all righteousness- is yours, too, because I chose you.
I died not just for you- I died as you.  The penalty for your sin has been paid.
You are free in me.
Lies do not define you.  I DEFINE YOU.  You are mine.  To me you are of infinite and immeasurable worth.