In the past few
months, God has been teaching me how to find Him in my weakness. Weakness. Not
exactly a word with a positive connotation, but let me explain. My entire life,
I have found it incredibly difficult to accept the idea that God loves me APART
from what I do for Him, that His love is completely free. For this reason, I
have only ever known striving – striving to earn God’s love and approval that I
already have. No matter how irrational, I’ve operated from the belief that if I
could perform well enough, I could somehow earn what I knew I could never
deserve. And I would continually fall flat on my face, feeling ever more
distant from Him with each stride to “be enough.”
A
few months ago, I was confronted with the reality that all along I had been
striving to do instead of be. What I had lost sight of is that “Jesus
lived the life we could not live and died the death we should have died.” Not
only do I not have to earn His love, but I couldn’t even if I wanted to - HE
has made me worthy. Because I accept this truth, He calls me His daughter and
that is who I am, regardless of whether I feel it. It is TRUTH.
Since
then, God has been taking me on a journey of learning how to stop the striving
and just receive His free love. I have been learning to live out of the truth
of who He says that I am, to be loosed of unnecessary expectations. I am being
set free to love Him, not as a burden, but as a joy. I am finally free to delight
in my Father as He delights over me. I am enough solely because He loves me.
-
Reflection
by Christiana Troupe
Hailing
from Lees Summit, Christiana Troupe is a health nut in her junior year at
Rockhurst pursuing a degree in finance and economics. In her college career,
she has served as an ambassador, resident assistant, orientation leader, social
mentor, and frosh get-a-way leader. In her future career, she has a heart to
one day bring justice to victims of human trafficking and participate in global
development initiatives.
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