I am beyond thankful God never said: “This is the amount of faith you need to achieve, before you can ask something of me, or I can give you something from Me”.

Raise your hand if you have ever uttered a word, a thought that goes along the lines of, “I don’t deserve this”. Whether it is a grade when studying the night before was replaced with watching Tik Toks. Perhaps it is forgiveness. The blessings you received when your best friend was suffering. The inner, beautifully human torment of celebrating a milestone in your life when someone you know just lost a family member. The thought that goes: I don’t deserve to feel happy right now. I don’t deserve my husband/wife treating me so well when I was so cruel.

“I don’t deserve this”.

I remember thinking that I did not deserve forgiveness from the Lord. I remember feeling stupid, like a child and utterly useless. I was hypocritical, and I was not myself. I was going through a really hard time and I let that be my excuse, my daily excuse for my actions. I did not even try to fix it. Dr. Bob Schuchts says in his podcast, “I think that’s why we distance ourselves from our own woundedness…because if we can’t fix it, we don’t want to deal with it”. And that was me. But, I was attempting to fix things on my own. I was playing God. I did not deserve a second chance simply because I knew. That is what made it worse. The fact that I knew, I KNEW in my heart something was wrong with my actions, my thoughts, my words, my daily habits and I did them anyway. I can honestly say, I did things because I knew it was the right thing to do. I still did all the “Christian things” and from the outside, I was the perfect example. I was a perfect influence. From a good, Catholic, well-known family. Raised well. Kind-hearted.

And because I knew…there was to be no excuse for my actions, my thoughts, my daily decisions. I did not value the goodness of peace and being still. So now, I just had to put my head down and receive the consequence, receive the Wrath of God, so to speak. In my little, burdened heart of blind obedience with no actual love or desire for a relationship with Jesus, I clouded myself in self-induced shame and inaccurate images of my God shaking His finger at me in heaven. Taking the jewels off my heavenly crown. His voice was angry and then it got quieter and quieter until I couldn’t hear it. I used to think this was because I was not worthy enough to hear His voice, He would never speak to someone like me. Now I realize, the reason the voice got quieter was because I was listening to other angry voices instead.

During quarantine back in April and May, I had to decide for myself if this was something to actively pursue or not. This whole, “having a Catholic faith” thing. However, I still equated God as a dictator. I could not see all this unconditional love and mercy I always hear about in Sunday masses. I was incredibly lukewarm. I did things out of fear of God, not out of love. I feared punishment, I feared hell. And my friend…there is such a difference. So, I had to seek Him out. I had to let Him have time in my life. I had to finally let Him in after He had been knocking at the door of my heart for years.

When I started feeling loved unconditionally, it was actually a very overwhelming experience. It was emotional. I’ve wept deeply because of this. I couldn’t really believe it. Yes, I was in denial for a long time. I couldn’t be loved. I could not be getting a second chance right now. There was no way. I didn’t deserve it. Yet, I was shocked at how often I would pick up my bible and there would be the same sort of message, “My child, I love you no matter what”. No matter what. I started hearing God’s voice like a concerned Father not an angry dictator.

And I will be honest. The road of self-love and self-compassion is truly never over. The road to accepting that God works through broken, imperfect people is hard to believe, because it does not match anything we know about “gods”. But this road, even to just find where it begins…was a long one. And, I am still in the midst of it. When someone told me, when I explained a situation, that God was speaking through me, my first thought in my head was, “No, no way, I am not worthy enough”.

But I started to seek God out, seek ways He could work in my life. I stopped finishing my questions with, “but I know I don’t deserve this“ because quite frankly, none of us deserve anything; we’re all quite rotten. We are all in need of saving grace. We all have habits we need to break and thoughts we need to silence.

Then, instead of asking Christ things, I started noticing without questioning, the ways He fulfilled my dreams, my desires, my passions. I actually began to understand how God works through people. Without even knowing, I was beginning to get to know Him. I was beginning to see without real, hard, confusing and time-consuming thought processes, what was of Him. I started to filter out voices in my head that I knew were not His voice. But, this was only after I took the time and got to know how He works and How he speaks. I picked up the scripture and discovered the ways in which God acts and speaks, to literally all kinds of people in total clarity. To my psychology fascinated brain, I was indeed fascinated. I was almost analyzing behaviour, and analyzing patterns in the Bible. It made sense to me. Habits and patterns of behaviour do not lie.

You see, Christ was alive and well in my life already, when I didn’t pray, when I didn’t go to church. But, when I accepted myself and accepted His love, I noticed it more, I noticed Him working through me, through my brokenness, my present flaws. There was one moment, where I had to put something at His feet, something that I loved and quite frankly did not know I could live without. Then, I had about a week when I felt okay losing that one thing. It was scary how calm I felt. If it was His will, then so be it. Total surrender. My inner battle was exhausting as I was trying to read through the signs of “why, did I feel so fine with this”.

Then, when that week finished, I felt God was allowing me to still have that one thing, He just wanted me to go about it with Him in the picture. My friends, when I tell you I was grateful, I was. I was in tears. I was smiling and couldn’t stop. I was shocked that despite my brokenness, God was still gifting this into my life. Because when the bible says, “Behold, I make all things new”, it makes sense. Things done in the Holy Spirit are new. New feelings, a new person comes out of surrender. Newness. Not “better”. Not taking things away so we learn. Just new.

This moment of feeling unconditional love and not anger or frustration at me, it was a moment of discovering the absolute goodness and mercy of God, it was not a moment of “I finally deserve this”.

Living with the Spirit and having God more present has been amazing. I am noticing prayers being answered. I am noticing tiny fleeting moments of me asking God to send me something and it being sent. I am noticing the gifts I’ve had since birth and the Truths spoken to me since I was little… finally becoming fully alive. I am noticing I am less irritable. I am noticing I have more patience. I am noticing I appreciate people in my life more. I am noticing how I can be a light and share my story. I am noticing more gratitude for the littlest things. Life following God is not boring, it is not a list of “can-not-do’s”. It is a list of “look at all I can do”.

It wasn’t the amount of faith I somehow gained and somehow God was now noticing.  It was the complete surrender to actually believing that I was loved, cherished. Beloved. That Christ could actually work through my brokenness and my flaws. I was worthy of great, new things.

St. Peter, you have probably heard of, is one of the most relatable people in the bible. He received the best evangelization ever, he was present with Jesus all the time. And still, he doubted as I do. I often wonder if I was living in Jesus’ time, would I follow him? Peter was with the Savior, for his entire ministry and he was still so broken. Almost every bible story of him is Jesus making an example of him, “Here is NOT what to think, here is what NOT to do”. And yet, despite Peter’s brokenness, Jesus used him to become the first pope.

Another story: When Jesus met Mary Magdalene, he cast out 7 demons from her. There is controversy to her having a mental illness, back in a time when that was not even recognized. And yet, she was the first person to see Christ risen. A woman…was the first person to see Jesus after He had died. Not only did Jesus use Mary’s brokenness, He recognized her as worthy because of her brokenness. Worthy (If anyone says to you that Jesus did not support woman, or that He enforced a patriarchal society, tell them this story, He loved and affirmed women so much that a woman was first to see the greatest miracle of all time).

There is a reason why Jeremiah 31:3 is, “I have loved you with ever lasting love”. As in past tense, as in He has always loved. He did not just start at some point, He always HAS. He loves you simply because He created you, not because of all the things you have done. He was not waiting for my perfect level of faith.

He was waiting for my long-awaited “Yes, I know that you love me Father, no matter what”.

From my unconditionally loved and created heart to your unconditionally loved and created heart…(whether you believe this or not).