Stumble. Fall. Break. Heal.

I had a post on social media planned for today (why it's good. Glares to all you people that think it's bad.) But then I couldn't find a picture I liked for it, so I'm waiting on that. Maybe Monday. Today I decided to give you another one of those attempted encouragement posts.

Lately I've been learning that it's okay to stumble. It's okay to fall and to break. That sometimes healing comes in the aching. Life isn't perfect, and Christians aren't strong people. The horrid truth is that Christians fall. And we break and we bleed just like other people. The sad truth is: we fail too. We mess up and we feel like Jesus will never forgive us. But then there's the beautiful truth that He does forgive. He is faithful and just to forgive. When we make mistakes, it's okay. Because Jesus is there to gently help us off the ground and to clean our wounds and wipe away our tears.

Lately I've been learning the beautiful truth of healing. Sometimes it's hard to feel like someday everything is going to be whole and healthy. But it will be. It's a long journey here on earth, but Jesus never gives up on us. And he does care.

Lately I've been relearning to call God my Father. It's easy to get caught up in the daily life of 'He's my God' and to totally miss out on the 'He's my FATHER' part. Because we are HIS children. We are HIS sheep and HIS worshipers. We are not only the Humans meant to serve Him, but we are his children meant to take part in his beautiful plans.

But even though I know all these things in my mind, it's easy to feel as if I will never measure up. That I will never be the 'model Christian girl' that others see and want to be like. Sometimes I think I am failing in my Christian life and that everything I do is a stumble in this dance called life. And I fall and I break. And I get back up and do it all over again. Like the steps to this dance will never be right and that I will never be able to get it and be graceful. And the truth is: we were never meant to be perfect! We were never created to make perfect art. We weren't created to make perfect stories and take perfect photographs. We weren't created to be the model of life that everyone wants to be. We weren't created to be able to do everything.

We were created for one very big, very important purpose and that is to serve God. And under serving God we are his children. We are the princes and princesses of a Holy Land and we will be everlasting. We were created to create and that's what artists do on an everyday basis.

It's easy to think that you've fallen short somehow in both your daily life and your creative life. It's easy to feel like you're failing short as a Christian. But God doesn't see you as a failure. He never will. Perhaps he gets sad when we screw up, but he doesn't think you're a failure. Because we're humans. We stumble. We fall. We break, but we are healed through Jesus.

"I have loved you with an everlasting love." -Jeremiah 31:3