Spend Yourself {Day 18} :: Offering

... After I walked through those doors in secret, I spent weeks out of class and in groups instead. Ate awkward and quiet around a table for a grade, drew myself in Oshkosh overalls and braids. My roommates didn't know I wasn't in school and I didn't go home for Easter. I logged a lot of hours ... learning how to live healthy and real and unafraid. Learning how to be comfortable in my own skin. Learning how to make mistakes, ask for help, be full.

I did a lot of practical work, realized earth-shattering things like: I can change my mind if I want to, it's ok to say "I don't understand," and I don't have to apologize so often.

And my drive to serve this false master was waning because you just can't follow a master when all its principles begin to crumble. I was shedding some baggage and I no longer wanted to go running. Not at all.

So when that doctor looked at me one morning and told me not to get married, something didn't add up. He said I had discovered myself "at my best." "This is who you will always be," he told me.

My heart sank for a split second and then I saw a glaring red flag. Because I had just stayed up too late the night before reading this.  Grace. In that moment, I had to wonder how much I had contributed, how much of my time and energy and fear had I offered to this self-life? How much had I paid out of my own pocket to stay empty? How much of my own freedom had I given up?

And why do we do that? Give so much of ourselves to serve the false when it leaves us ... subservient?

It bowled me over right in that office and I told him I would be offering myself to something new... that I finally understood. He did not understand and he said I was sounding awfully sacrificial ... "all this talk about offering."  I smiled, nodded. "Yeah, I guess I am."

He squinted and squirmed and assured me I would be back. Then he pointed to my shirt, that camp shirt I slept in, with those two words printed in white on baby blue. He asked me what they meant as I looked down ...

SIXTEEN: ELEVEN

This time I laughed out loud. And I knew I would be alright. Because the only One worth offering myself to had shown up that morning with truth ... shown Himself bigger than reason.

Tim Keller says that when we encounter the "weightiness of God," He moves from a hopeful concept to an undeniable reality in our lives. Suddenly there is no question about who or what to serve. We stop wondering about the better option. False masters stand out like a sore thumb.
 
And I answered the doctor's question and spoke that psalm with confidence. My chin up. 

"You have made known to me the path of life. You will fill me with joy in your presence..."

You. will. fill. me.

He was frustrated and speechless and I was more certain than ever. I said goodbye and I didn't go back and I finished school. And then I followed my new husband to Arkansas.

I was on my way to being all healed up ... from the inside out.