LOST BUT FOUND

Sometimes I feel....lost. I wish I had a word that sounded just a bit less melodramatic, but that's the one that comes to mind when I'm sitting around feeling sorry for myself. Lost.

My picture perfect world isn't how I pictured it. It's as though there's this person who I was meant to be....who I want to be....who I'd like to think I am, but instead of being that picture-perfect person, I'm stained. I'm stained by the reality of who I really am, and I feel like I'm continually searching for that person I wish I was. And it leaves me feeling lost.

That's me. But that isn't the whole truth. It may be how I feel, but it isn't truth.

{I'M NOT LOST}

I've been camping out in Psalm 139 lately. It tells me that no matter how I feel, I'm not lost.

"O Lord, you have searched me and known me!" (Psalm 139:1)

I can't be lost.

"You hem me in, behind and before,
And lay your hand upon me." (Psalm 139:5)

There's no place I can go where God is not.

"Where shall I go from your Spirit?
Or where shall I flee from your presence?

If I ascend to heaven, you are there!
If I make my bed on Sheol, you are there!" (Psalm 139:7-8)

There's no version of myself that He doesn't see or isn't "acquainted with".

"If I take the wings of the morning 
and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,

even there your hand shall lead me,
and your right hand shall hold me." (Psalm 139:9-10)

So, I know I'm not really lost, but I really am stained. Almost since the beginning of time, all of humanity has been stained by sin. Sin takes that person who I was meant to be, that person I wish I was, and stains it. I hate that I will never be the woman I should have been without the sins of selfishness, pride, pure disobedience.

{I'M WRITTEN}

But as I keep reading in Psalm 139, I see that God isn't surprised by the ugly reality of who I am. He has known me from before my beginning.

"For you formed my inward parts;
you knit me together in my mother's womb." (Psalm 139:13)

Not only has He known me, but He also planned me.

"Your eyes saw my unformed substance;
in your book were written, every one of them,
the days that were formed for me,
when as yet there was none of them." (Psalm 139:16)

He wrote my days. He knew who I really would be, even with the stains of sin and disobedience, and He didn't blot me out. He didn't rip out the pages and burn them, or scribble over them, or go back and rewrite them.

He wrote it all. He wrote the pain I would cause and the pain I would receive. He wrote the good days and the bad ones. He wrote the tears, and the laughter, and everything in between. He wrote my trying and my failing, my absolute joy and my utter disappointment.

{I'M FOUND}

He wrote it all, and He didn't change it. I don't understand. I would have changed a lot of things. But all those things are part of God's grace to me.  All those ugly stains remind me of my need for forgiveness. God didn't remove those pages because they're the ones that point me to Him.  They point me to something better that Jesus died to give me.

My pages aren't blotted out; they're covered over. They aren't ripped out and burned; they're read through a different lens. They aren't rejected; they're forgiven. Jesus died for all those sins he knew would be written. I don't understand that, either.

I still feel a little lost, but the truth is that I've been found.  That's the truth.  I may never be the person I wish I was.  My life will never be picture perfect. But my life has been written by a perfect God who sent His perfect Son to live the perfect life I never could. And then He wrote His forgiveness over all my pages.

I'm not lost.