God LOVES You

I cried today in one of our classes. It wasn't an ugly cry or a sobbing cry, but a peaceful cry where tears just ran down my face. I haven't had that kind of cry in a long time. You know what made me cry so much? Jesus loves me.

For so long I have known Jesus loves me. And in many moments I felt His love for me. But I've never accepted His love for me. I've always believed He loves me, but I have never let His love touch me to the core of who I am.

Our teacher was talking about the Crucifixion. Now, growing up in a Christian home, in church, and at a Christian school, I have heard this story a billion times. I knew Jesus loved me. I knew what He'd done for me on the cross. But the way in which he told the story broke my heart. The pain Jesus experienced for me is unreal. With each slash of the whip, He let it go on for me. With each thorn in His skull, blood ran for me. With each slam of the hammer onto the nail into His hands and feet, Jesus' heart cried, "I love you." And as the teacher told this, my eyes teared up, thinking of the crazy amount of pain Jesus went through. But it didn't end there.

We went into what we call a "ministry moment" where there is just some music playing and we have time to process what we just heard. And the teacher kept talking and stuff, but I was processing and not listening a ton. I did hear him say that we could do whatever we need to process all that He had talked about (not just the crucifixion, other stuff he had talked about earlier). For me, that meant sitting on the floor in the moment. I got on my knees to process what I'd heard and the things God had been putting on my heart. And while I was on my knees, I had this image/vision. It was of Jesus' cross, clean and perfect with holes where the nails had gone, but no Jesus on the cross. I was kneeling at the foot of this cross. I was bowing before Jesus, once again laying my baggage at the foot of the cross. I was laying down my baggage of rejection, my baggage of fear, and my baggage of not feeling worthy. And then Jesus walked up to me and got down on His knees in front of me facing me. He lifted up my head, my face streaked with tears and looked into my eyes with these beautiful brown eyes and said to me, "Reagan, as I hung on the cross I saw your beautiful brown eyes."

I don't enjoy crying, but in that moment, Jesus wrecked me. Tears fell down my face and for the first time in my life I accepted Jesus' love. So far in my time here, the Lord has been revealing to me that I don't accept His love. I pour out my heart to Him and I give Him my love. I love others generously and compassionately. I'm there for my friends and family when they need me. I serve where I am needed. I love giving to others. But I don't let Jesus do all those things for me. Jesus has been knocking at my heart saying, "Will you let ME love you? Will you let me fill you up?"

About a week ago, we had a girls night and one of the things we did was, one at a time, sit in the middle of a circle of chairs while the rest of the group prayed for us and asked for words from God about our original design and our heart and our purpose. And I was the last one to go. I kept letting others go before me, letting them get poured into. When my time came, I sat there, a little scared to see what happened. The devil whispered lies into my mind like "They aren't going to have anything to say" or "This isn't really the Lord, they'll just make stuff up." Well, the enemy was wrong. As they began praying and speaking truth into my life, time and time again things hit me right in the heart. One such thing was that one of the leaders had a vision of me setting up a neatly placed table. I had a table mat, a fork, and an empty glass right in the middle of the place mat. Nothing else. And she thought of this song that talks about letting God pour into us, letting HIM fill us up. Dang. That hit hard. For so long I have put other's happiness, hearts, and feelings before mine. I was pouring into people, but never letting the Lord pour into me.

And so as I sat there crying on the floor of the chapel during class today, so in awe that Jesus would say He saw my eyes, my least favorite part of my body, and that was His declaration of His love for me, I began inviting Jesus to fill my cup. To fill me with His heart, His joy, His peace, and His love. I accepted Jesus' love in my life. So yeah, Jesus loves me.

Another time previously that Jesus had been showing me He loved me was during that same girls night and same moment as the vision of the cup. One of the other leaders had previously asked if I played sports and gave me a vision of how I could use that in the future, which is really cool. That's not what I wanted to talk about though. Another leader talked about how I played sports and she said that she felt that God was saying, "Your best was good enough." God wrecked me, again. He knows I don't appreciate crying so He tries to make me cry a lot. Anyways, something a lot of people don't know about me is that my four years of playing soccer in high school were a struggle. I felt less than, I wasn't good enough, I didn't play varsity, and I felt like the other girls on the team didn't like me. I took all of those things as indications to who I am as a person. The fact that I wasn't good enough to play varsity meant I wasn't good enough as a person. The fact that I wasn't good enough meant the better varsity players didn't like me because I only got in the way, which meant I was burden to every player on the team. The fact that I wasn't good enough made me inferior to everyone else on the team. I was beneath all of them. And sadly, I believed all of this. And little did I know that I still carried those things as revelations of who I was to this day. I simply wasn't good enough, I simply was a burden, and I simply wasn't wanted or appreciated. But the thing is that in every moment of every practice and game I was ALWAYS doing my best, despite what coaches thought of me, despite what was going on outside of soccer, and despite what the other players thought of me. I loved soccer so I did my best. So for that lady to hear God saying to me, "Your best was good enough," was just an insane shift of view on my life. I didn't have to carry all those thoughts about myself anymore because my best was good enough for GOD.

So a few words of encouragement for anyone feeling or relating to any of these situations.

First, Jesus loves you. Like really, really LOVES you. He wants to bless you, to see you, to hear from you, and to pour out His love on you. You just have to let Him. It's more than just a salvation prayer. A salvation prayer says I believe you love me and died for me. That is the place where I have lived my whole life. Accepting His love says, "I want to let you love me." It invited Him to pour out His all onto you. Second, your best is good enough. Don't compare yourself to others. God only asks for your best. He loves you and desires you at your best. And at your worst. And everywhere in between. He loves you, like really, really deeply loves you. All of you, every single part of you. On that cross, He saw the part you hate most about yourself and cried out in pure love. Don't let anyone else tell you any different.