This time of year makes my heart hurt. For alot of reasons. Ends to some things. Beginnings to others.
I find myself going completely backwards some days. From those mountain top weeks with a break through in healing to that one comment...ya know ...the one from the friend of a friend's sister's neighbor's brother who thinks they know you or what you've been through...yet never ask to get the facts straight or the truth.

Life is a mess. We make it a mess don't we?

We thrive on the negative instead of living like the One who created us. the RagamuffinHeart for ALL.


I can be lost in my own mess, depressed, in my current situation or I can look ...no... find...something positive. The Lord will be my Vindicator and Defense. I remain still, and watch Him do the work and see Him cultivate a beautiful plan for me. He will redeem what's been taken and lost. He is for me and steadies my heart.

I had to remind myself of this today and days to come...

I watched a movie called the Ragamuffin Gospel, the story of Rich Mullin’s (a Christian music artist) life story who passed away in a car accident.

His life wasn’t about the fame, the glory, the praise. It was about Jesus.

 His life was a beautiful mess. Broken. A failure at the foot of the cross. Grace. Mercy.

My heart asked so many questions.

I had to get my hands on Brennan Manning’s book, the explanation of what the Ragamuffin Gospel was. There was so much to this book in realizing how much of a ragamuffin I am. There was such freedom in this.

I don’t have it all together.

I am weak, not strong. I cry. alot.

I’m a failure with scars to prove it.

I am nothing.

barefoot.

 To identify fully with Christ is to identify with the poor, the homeless. He loved the broken.

There is freedom and beauty in brokenness.

Pretending to be perfect.

Why do I pretend with the smile that everything is ok? It’s exhausting.

wrestling with surrender. surrender to self. Am I not to die to myself. Take up HIS cross. I cannot…. and He still loves me. There is no perfection in me. He knows and understands. He knew I would be here the day I was born. For such a time as this…how will He be glorified in my mess?

To suffer for His glory. What a privilege.

I find my identity at the foot of the cross. My failures and life only pieced back together by Jesus who loves me despite my shortcomings. But to really believe that, to grasp that I am nothing. Yet He still picks up and puts me back together.

I have no right to point a finger at anyone.

  Loved, forgiven and created by the same Father. We are all equal at the foot of the cross. We all mess up.

So who. Am. I. ? That I would judge anyone.

It’s tough. It pours out of my mouth, then to be stopped by realization I am no better than anyone.

A sinner saved by grace. Grace. A beautiful word. Underserved. The chains broken.

I admit I am and always will be broken, but mended by His grace and mercy. Words I never really understood. He has dissected my heart.

Jesus dined with the broken, He called sinners, ones who’s failures and messes were  forgiven…without question…

beggars at the door of God’s mercy. He walked with the ragamuffins.

Love. Undeserved forgiveness.

Chains broken.

I have to forgive. die to myself and pray for the ones who hurt me.. Jesus loves them too.

I don’t have to have it all together, because in the end, it won’t matter anyway. His story is my story.

On judgment day, He will ask. “Did you believe that I loved you?”

“Trust me that I love you. All of you.” –Jesus

In tears as I sign out. Oh how I love Jesus Oh how I love Jesus…because He first loved me.