It's not a horrible failure, but it's failure all the same. And I hate it. I feel like crap. What's worst is that I can't admit to anyone I know that I've failed, even though I know they already know. So I see them all, and sometimes they nag me a little, or disguise their curiosity and condemnation behind sugary, faux encouraging words. Okay, I know it's not really like that - they're not really like that - but that's how it feels. I know they are disappointed, though, and I only feel crappier about having failed. Perhaps my nonchalant attitude has them convinced that I don't feel like crap. But don't be fooled by this cucumber cool exterior or the snarky humor. I feel like crap. Perhaps if I let them see I feel like crap they'd leave me alone and let me come back in my crapbox by myself and deal with my failure.
You see, I had a 20-page paper to write, and it was due two days ago. It's not done. Everyone knows it's not done. When I lived alone, it would've just not been done, I would have delt with it, finished it, and we would have all moved on. Or I guess I should say that I would have all moved on. Because the only people who would have known about it would have been me, Jesus, and my professor. But now I live in "community." So everyone knows. Are they torturing me intentionally? No. I know that they love me and don't wish to hurt me. But you see, every time one of them asks me, "is your paper done?", "shouldn't you be working on your paper?", "how's that paper coming?", "hey, where are you on that paper?", "wasn't that paper due [insert appropriate timeperiod here - stating it in the way that's unintentionally most likely to make me feel like a warm, smelly heap of crap] ago?", all I can hear is my father's voice saying to me, "you're worthless." "you're lazy and you'll never amount to anything." "why can't you be good like your sister." "why even bother trying, you'll never amount to anything anyway."
Why do we do this to each other?
How can we make it right?
And then the irony of the season and my whole situation hits me full force. Today is Good Friday. It's 3:50 am on Good Friday. My shoulders are heavy with the burden of my failure and sin, but have I even stopped to consider the One who gave everything for me so that I wouldn't have to wear it around like a big, prickly piece of armour? What was He doing right now, at this moment, on this day 1980 years ago? Some high priest had Him by the neck. He hadn't seen Pontias Pilate the first time. He'd already been before Caiaphas once. I think maybe He'd already been denied by Peter - at least once, maybe twice. Oh, the gravity of that. Of knowing that His disciple - His servant, His friend, His brother - was even now trying to think of some way to extract himself from the whole situation. And this is the guy who had said to Him just hours earlier, "Lord, I am ready to go with you both into prison and into death!" (Luke 22:33). And now here he was, who had sworn his allegiance to Jesus, even unto death, spitting out sound and fury, backpedaling faster than someone in a paddleboat stuck in a patch of shoreline duckweed. Oh, Jesus - Jesus my Lord, I am so sorry. What did Peter feel when Jesus looked him in the eye after the cock crowed? After the cock crowed and he knew the full extent of what he had just done, had just said. Maybe he felt a little like I do now.
When Jesus hung on the Cross, bleeding and suffering, He knew the glory that was to come. But I think He saw what I did, too. And not just me sitting in my room checking my facebook when I should have been studying the plans for the fortresses built during the Davidic Empire. He saw me as I laid on a cool metal table, whacked up on valium and vicodin while an anonymous, faceless abortionist pulled the bloody pieces of my freshly killed baby out of my warm body. Not once, but four times. He saw me when I laid passed out on my bathroom floor in a puddle of cooling vomit, drunk and stoned out of my mind, knowing that I would get up the next day and look for more of the hair of the dog that had bitten me. Talk about a dog returning to its own vomit. He saw me when I stumbled into my parents' home, too high on crack cocaine to even make it up the stairs, and my father had to carry me up them so I wouldn't hurt myself. He saw me and, for whatever reason, He put His hand on my back and said, "Not this one. This one's Mine. She doesn't belong to him. She belongs to Me. She's Mine. Satan is sifting her. He will sift her again. But she will turn back, and when she does I have work for her to do."
Those sins nailed Him to that bloody cross. He was beaten bloody for them. He died for them. I think He saw my face. I think He looked me in the eye. I'll bet the expression on His face was the same as the one with which He looked at Peter after that rooster crowed. He sees me now, surrounded by piles of books and an overdue paper that needs more work.
Why is it easier for me to accept His forgiveness for those heinous, dark, deathly sins than is for me to accept that He sits on the other side of my desk right now, reaching out His hand, waiting for me to take it. To stop feeling the shame. To finish what I've started, secure in His arms and His forgiveness.
I hear His voice. He says to me, "Jaye, Jaye, behold, Satan has demanded permission to sift you like wheat; but I have prayed for you, that your faith may not fail; and you, when once you have turned again, strengthen your brothers."
I have failed.
God, forgive me.
I think you are beautiful.
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