Letter to a friend

From a letter I sent to a friend;

For whatever reason, I feel that the Lord has put it on my heart to share a small testimony about an aspect of my life.

Growing up, I have always prided myself on having wisdom and discernment. This fact made me begin to feel like I could see into other peoples lives and make judgments concerning their family life, work life and relationship with the Lord. I feel like up until the past year I have been living with a very judgmental spirit towards everyone in my life. They could never do enough to please me or earn my gratitude for their sincerity, they all seemed fake and hypocritical to me. Even if they did really well in one area I would still write them off because of failures in other areas. 

I couldn't see it at the time, but it was a very sorry state for me to live in. I had no one in my life who I could glean from except people who were in the spotlight of my conservative circles. Surely these men had it all together and I could look up to their lives.

I believed this delusion for an awful long time. Whenever one of these men fell, they would be written off completely, no matter how small the offense. They fell short

Over the course of time, and I would say especially since this past year, God rearranged some stuff in my life and I stumbled onto an old Christian relic called grace.

My life is very different now. I am honored to look up to so many people that I used to despise. I am amazed at how God did this in my life because I didn't go looking for it. Like so many other problems in my life, I had no idea it even existed, or that it was a real problem.

I cannot overestimate my excitement as I begin real friendships for the first time and allow "normal" human being to speak into my life with the wisdom they have been granted through their experiences. I have a place I can come off of my own pedestal or hypocrisy and be real.

I see myself more clearly through this process. I see my faults and failures. Maybe that is the mechanism by which I have come to have grace for others, I see that I need it desperately, myself.