I am His Beloved Daughter, in whom He is well pleased.

I am His Beloved Daughter, in whom He is well pleased. 

With all my inadequacies and insecurities. In all my mess. 

I am His Beloved Daughter, in whom He is well pleased. 

HE delights in me. He DELIGHTS in me. He delights in ME!

I vividly remember the moment when I asked Jesus in prayer, "Why did You suffer and die this way?" And He told me, "For you...because I love you...because this is the way that we will be together forever..." And how did I respond? "No Lord, I am not worth it. I am not worth THIS. Don't do this for me. There must be another way. I am not worth THIS." I was deeply convicted in this belief. 

Instead of seeing His love for me, and His untold mercy and the fulfillment of His promises, all I could focus on was my own unworthiness.

 

The thought that Jesus's horrible suffering and death was not worth my life is a tangled web that is taking me years to undo.

 

I was faced with the reality of His death and I couldn't bear the responsibility of it. I couldn't reconcile that my sins put Him there. His death on the cross did not fill me with peace. It filled me with regret. I was blinded to Christ because I was so convicted that I was not worthy. That I was not worth THIS. I robbed myself of the intimacy that our Lord offered from His Cross. I declined the invitation to be His, and instead saw only my own failure. I did not deserve Him. Yet all I wanted was to accept this invitation, to embrace and accept His Love, Mercy, and delight in me. And I have suffered in that longing ever since.

I thought I could actually do something to deserve His Love. I thought I should earn it. I needed to repay, perhaps out of love, but also out of debt, out of my lack, because of my lack.