He is pleased.

So I've noticed a pattern lately. The past four or five times, I've gone down to the alter and get prayed for or have gotten a word from someone, in some form or another they've said that God was pleased with me. "Pleased with me?... Me?! The girl that can never sing anything just right when I am supposed to be singing for Him, the one that never leaves the kind of time in the day for Him that she is supposed to, the one that is never, EVER disciplined enough in her school-work, the one that fails constantly at expressing love and appreciation for her family, (little sister in particular), the very same one who put the nails in His hands and crown on His head... why is He pleased with me." I always think. And I don't.. i guess, "accept" it. Not that I don't care, or that that isn't my greatest desire in all my 16 years, but I never let myself really believe, and couldn't even really comprehend that the God I grieve all too often in my daily life, is really pleased with me, or has anything less than a tolerated sense of disdain. (Just to add a little disclaimer here, I know God loves His children and never ever has anything less than love for them, and far from disdain. This is just me expressing my personal thoughts towards my own situation:).

So now, as I'd pondered hard and often over these things, I noticed a pattern. That particular phrase, "He is pleased with you", had never been focused on, or even said in those situations to my remembrance, prior to the last two years. The years that I began believing I wasn't good enough. The years that the majority of my prayer times were filled with repentance and shame, believing the lie that I wasn't even worthy to enter into His holy presence in prayer. I'd heard the words... but I didn't believe them. It was too good to be true.

My youth Pastor's wife said something recently that hit me hard... that when you repent and ask for forgiveness, God gives it to you the very first time without exception, but it is our decision to accept it and move on, never acknowledging that sin again. And I think this is the same way. I didn't... couldn't... wouldn't believe, that God is pleased with me as I am. Yet He was trying to show me the age old wonder of His grace... I can't do anything to earn His delight or pleasure, but when I walk in His forgiveness, and ask for His mercy in my short-comings, I am as white as snow to Him, and nothing I can do will alter His love for me.