Don't beat yourself up

y'all it has been sooooo long since my last post (around Valentine's day to be exact). This week i'll be doing two posts and this is the first.

I'm a person who often beats herself up when I fail. And it doesn't matter what it is i've failed at or not done as well as I could have, I ALWAYS, without fail, beat myself up. This is particularly true when it comes to sin. Let me break it down for you. We all know we're sinful beings. We all know that we struggle every single day because of this fact. Yet, I somehow still make a point to believe i'm this awful person for continuing to sin. Here's the thing: when I asked Jesus Christ to be my Lord and Savior and I was baptized, something changed. I was no longer lost but found and saved by His amazing grace by virtue of what He did on the cross 2,000 years ago. Now you'd think that'd be the end of it. I wouldn't continue to focus on my faults and sins. But I do. I constantly focus on what i'm doing wrong rather than the efforts I make to serve Him. And friends, when I do that, when we do that, we're undermining what He did on the cross. So often, I will say "I need to fix this this and this about myself and I need to do it alone." BUT, the reality is that no matter how hard I try or how much I want to , I CANNOT do it alone because i'm not strong enough to do so. But Jesus is. All I have to do is let Him in and let Him take over because He's my Savior and all He wants is me and you. I know all of this is true yet I still seem to be caught up in the lies I believe about myself. Now, in all honesty, we are all unworthy. And when I say this, I mean we are unworthy to be in God's presence WITHOUT a mediator. But that's where the good news comes in: JESUS IS OUR MEDIATOR!!! He is the reason we can be welcomed into God's family and why we are called worthy; He makes us beautiful and worthy. You would think as a Christian I wouldn't struggle with these truths but I do. However, I also know that life is a journey and giving everything over to the Lord is not going to happen overnight as much as I want it to. I have to CHOOSE Him every single minute of every single day in order to fully experience His grace and what it means to be saved. Because if I keep trying to make it alone, I won't ever fully feel the beauty of it all.

So tonight, if you're feeling like a failure, like you don't matter or you should just give up, PLEASE DON'T!!! You matter so much to Jesus and He wants you for His own. He wants to ease your burdens, forgive your sins, and welcome you into His loving arms. You're human; you'll sin, fail, make mistakes but the beauty of this Christian life is that He is always ready and willing to forgive and love you and NO ONE can take that away.

- Mariah xo