{ take my hands and let them move at the impulse of thy love, at the impulse of thy love }

I had to write this down.

First - the back story:
I don't remember when exactly it was, but a few weeks back I woke up one morning with the enemy's heavy lies draped over my shoulders. I don't usually invite people into these moments of personal weakness because of my pride and justifications such as, "I can't be late for work," when in fact I'm late for work almost every day and I don't think twice about it.

But I went upstairs to see Angel. That's her name. That's the role it seems that she has played in my life,  amongst other way more important things like music-video-maker. She has a way with words and can articulate things that I cant. She also can see my blindspots and does not shy away from exposing them to me.

I think that morning I just started by talking about something inconsequential and lingered because I still wasn't sure I was going to ask her. And then I did. I asked her to pray for me. This lady is so intuitive to people and sensitive to others so I wasn't surprised when the words of her prayer seemed to come straight out of my little soul. I have been struck by a scene that seemed to be painted in my head as she prayed.

"God, we know Leigh Anne strives so hard because she wants to please you... sometimes we just want to stand before you and pull all of our sin off, but no matter how hard we try we can't claw all of our flesh off."

I pictured that. Me standing before God, enthusiastically clawing off my flesh saying, "see God? I know how bad I am and I'm getting it off! I hate it more than you do and I'm going to be sure there's not a speck of it left so you don't have to see it!" But no matter how fast I move or deep I claw, my flesh is still there.

And then I felt my capacity for knowing God and his mercy get deeper and wider. This was a personal gospel - God has submitted himself to me, a willful sinner, by sending his Son to die for me. Yes, because of His atonement, I have access to his peace and hope and joy and forgiveness and wisdom and blessing and healing and all the other things that now seem like symptoms of a much more significant reality - God came and redeemed me to himself so that I would be free from my self-imposed torture of condemnation and self-appointed mission for perfection, and creating a state of grace to protect me from the wrath of God and having to experience his absence.

That was a few weeks ago. Today I woke up with that familiar heaviness. The lies. The vulnerability. The insecurity. The awareness of my existential loneliness. The weather was kind of perfect. The clouds and the cold paralleled the still coldness I was experiencing internally. It wasn't all negative- I noticed a contentedness that was deeper than the ache. The contentedness grew to peace as I mentally placed myself in the middle of what I can only describe as a grace bubble. The words playing in my head were such a contrast to my old mental tapes that were full of shoulds and shame and condemnation and demands. Instead I thought about God's grace and how it feels like an impenetrable force field all around me. I remember again something my dear friend Becca told me once: "Leigh Anne, you can't be your own grace." It's almost like the grace forcefield protects those around me from my sin - something I have tried to manage by myself. God's grace can not be reproduced or manufactured. It already exists and acts as this loving layer between me and the world. I am protected from messages of hopelessness and worthlessness. The sin and darkness that leak - and sometimes shoot out of me like water out of a firehose - is mediated by God's perfect grace.

I was driving home from my last session when Kari Jobe's version of "Take My Life" came on. I played it again. And again. And again. And then I cried. Just a little. God's heart for me frees me from my crucifixion of my soul. I started to think of God as this loving figure that abandoned all of his plans for the day just to follow me around, to just be with me. To let me be. To remind me of my value as His child. To invite me to sit in His delight... of me.

I cried a little more and called my dad. He and I have worked through some stuff, as he would tell you himself. I wanted him to know the connection I had just made. Maybe not, but maybe one of the reasons I could experience being romanced by God today was because my dad has shown me what that feels like. I thought of going to daddy-daughter dances and being so aware that no one else had a daddy like mine, but I wished they did. I remembered him taking me to Big Boy for a strawberry waffle before school, just because (and without the others). I thought of all the voicemails I've saved when he's called just to tell me I'm on his mind. I thought of countless conversations where I more so talked at him about something I was ruminating on, and he invited me to let go and laugh at my humanity rather than attempt to manage it. I thought of him flying to Denver to respond to my asking for him to come be with me.

I ended up leaving him a blubbery voicemail, which is maybe better. Maybe he can save it for the days that he's in his own shame zone. I hung up the phone and cried a little deeper. But it wasn't sadness, it was a response. It wasn't about my dad and feeling some sort of healing of old wounds- which would have seemed like a reasonable explanation. The Kari Jobe song was still playing on repeat. I heard the words, "take my hands and let them move at the impulse of my love," and I felt like I had written those words myself - I felt my soul responding to a new awareness of God's pursuit of me and his perfect peace.

All of the little souls and minds I was with today came to my mind. It seemed that God had been with me all day, in all the conversations, in all my travel, in all the interactions. It was just like my dad had come and attended to my heart with his gentle strength except to the nth degree. "Let them move at the impulse of Thy love, at the impulse of Thy love." When I am existing out of the truth of God's unrelenting love for me, I can only respond with humility and gratitude and awe. My mind and heart move intuitively and instinctually at the impulse of God's covenanting love that has saved me from myself. Without hesitation, I barge into the dark corners of the world.

And then I thought of my hands and the image of me clawing myself to shreds in an attempt to please God and pay penance for a inadequacy that will always be. It's not until we allow ourselves to believe and trust what seems to be the impossible - that we are fully embraced by God - that we are able to respond without striving; to instead embrace our souls as God as done so that we can then embrace the souls of the world that have deemed anything but embracable.