.: glorified wounds :.

"I got a hole in me now... yeah, I got a scar I can talk about." - Matchbox 20, "Bright Lights"

Is there something wrong with being healthy? Is there anything wrong with finally being whole? Then why is it that I can sense a natural bent towards accentuating my weaknesses? I even find myself mentally working out ways that I can capitalize off of the places in my life that I fall short. Why are some of us so quick to grab onto any sort of deep wound? Is it the fact that it gives me something to offer in conversation? Maybe. Maybe it is the fact that I feel most human when I feel the weakest. And why is it important that I feel human, especially around others? Because I want to feel normal. I want to fit in. I want to be accepted. And often times, people who have easy lives with little to no problems or wounds, they are the very ones that we distance ourselves from. We don't like to be surrounded by people who aren't hurting like us. It almost makes us feel like the wounds are our fault. I want to be a whole person, no longer divided in terms of my desires and longings. I want to be cured of all fears and temptations. I want those things with some of the deepest places of my heart. Yet I still hold onto certain damaged parts of my life. And in part, it is because I want life to be exciting. The question haunts me: will life with God, life in the Kingdom of God, be that exciting? Will it capture my interests, apart from all the ways that I or others may subtly dress it up? Does Jesus have what it takes to not only draw me in, but keep me within fellowship simply on the basis of His goodness and grace? Were I in Peter's shoes, I would have replied to Jesus that morning on the shore, "You don't understand, Jesus. I betrayed You. I said I wasn't going to... but I did! You don't get it! I am not a good person. I am not even remotely a faithful person. And I will almost surely do it again, if I am ever given the chance to down the road." What is that about? Why do I so often resist the healing hand of God in my life? Am I keeping them around so as to parade them as souvenirs of my struggles and woundedness in life? The reality is that they so often come through for us as badges of honor... or even licenses for further faithlessness. I don't have to strive towards godliness if I can simply get everyone around me to agree that I am anything but. But I don't need them. They are only getting in the way, calling me away from remaining in Him. And what is more, they are keeping me from allowing Christ's love to remain in me, in so far as I cling to that blessed reality. I can have it either way; either make the most of my fallen nature and the places where I am cheated, hurt, or betrayed... or renounce any fleshly advantage that I could find through them and remain focused on who I am now becoming as a follower of Christ. But I cannot have it both ways. I cannot hold onto how my rights have been violated, or even the ways that I violate others, and still renounce everything but what Christ offers me in faith, life, and love.