It is oh so very easy to find fault with the person we see in the mirror. We know the dark secrets about ourselves that we keep hidden from the rest of the world, and we are fairly certain that if the world really did know all about us, they wouldn't like us much at all.
Shine the light of this passage from Brennan Manning's Abba's Child into your dark corners and see what happens:
God loves who we really are - whether we like it or not. God calls us, as He did Adam, to come out of hiding. No amount of spiritual makeup can render us more presentable to Him....His love, which called us into existence, calls us to come out of self-hatred and to step into His truth. "Come to me now," Jesus says. "Acknowledge and accept who I want to be for you: a Savior of boundless compassion, infinite patience, unbearable forgiveness, and love that keeps no score of wrongs. Quit projecting onto Me your own feelings about yourself. At this moment your life is a bruised reed and I will not crush it, a smoldering wick and I will not quench it. You are in a safe place."
Truth is...I suspect you need to hear these words because I know for certain that I need to hear them. And I know this, because I absolutely relate to more of Manning's words - found in the foreword of the same book:
There have been times...when the felt presence of God was more real to me than the chair I am sitting on; when the Word ricocheted like broken-backed lightning in every corner of my soul; when a storm of desire carried me to places I had never visited. And there have been other times...when I identified with the words of Mae West: "I used to be Snow White - but I drifted"; when the Word was as stale as old ice cream and as bland as tame sausage; when the fire in my belly flickered and died; when I mistook dried-up enthusiasm for gray-haired wisdom; when I dismissed youthful idealism as mere naivete; when I preferred cheap slivers of glass to the pearl of great price.
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