She's a Hurricane in All Kinds of Weather

Yes, it's going around again. As it turns out my supervisor has the flu and I've got sick people coming through my line all the time. My little cousin is sick here at home as well, and I don't know why I still call him little, since he's in high school. But any who, here I am congested as ever and trying not to talk to anyone since I sound like a creepy old man whenever I speak.

Last night was rough. Technically I'm still considered "in training" but man, I make a lot of mistakes. Whoever says they love to learn is lying. I just really hate feeling stupid all the time. I was thinking of that quote from Anne of Green Gables, where Anne says "I never make the same mistake twice" and I thought of how much that is so not me. I love to beat a dead horse. And beat it more and some more until it's basically a zombie horse. Whatever the case may be, I can honestly say yes, I do make the same mistake twice, and not just twice, but roughly 1,023984,000 times. But thinking of this makes me think of my own testimony, and then similarly, the testimony of Brennan Manning.

Now Brennan Manning passed away earlier this April, but in a nutshell he was this really cool dude on fire for Jesus who lived by the saying "All is grace". No matter what sins he committed he had this radical trust in God that he was loved and that that love never quit. Brennan Manning is in some ways a controversial subject for Christians because even with his role as a preacher he struggled with
alcoholism his entire life and his marriage totally failed. Some people look at these things and say, "Man! what a shame. If only he wasn't an alcoholic and an asshole, he'd have touched sooooo many lives with the love of Jesus."

But I feel differently about it. At the end of his life all Brennan could say was, "All is grace". Does that mean his sins weren't sins and so he was excused from them? No way. But he knew, man. He totally knew how much his Heavenly Father loved him. He grasped it all the while knowing he couldn't comprehend it. If anything, Brennan's testimony was this: God loves you because of your sin. Not in spite of it. He's crazy about you because you're a dork, and you make mistakes. He loves you because you're real and you're His.

I don't know. My sick brain just felt like sharing today. The Lord told me earlier this year that if I never ever changed, he'd still be my God. That if this was it and I never learned another thing about Abba's love and I just stopped growing right here and right now, he'd still love me and bless me and be my Jesus forever. For this, I am thankful.

Because of this, I want to change.