Life is getting a bit harder and what sucks about it all is that you never know what it is when it happens--when it hits you or where. It’s an overheated mess that just boils over when the stacks are too high and the steam clouds your vision--or out of no where it could swing like a bullet. Some days it hits deep and drives into your veins--punctures your insides bit by bit. Other days it’s a quick pain, but it could sit in your flesh until you’re all worn out, then it really knocks you. Maybe hope can salvage whatever is left, otherwise you’re just another patient in line for the wrecked and depressed. What is it that really makes you special? What makes you an outsider that deserves any piece of love and attention? These are questions that awake countless nightmares. Why should I be loved? How could I?

This pain is depression. It's the slow start of a long night where anxiety and insecurity eat up my thoughts and drives me to the point where I think of myself as nothing more than just an "okay" form carrying a load of shame from the past, present, and anxious thoughts about how I'm going to screw up the future. Where on earth could there be room for love in this mess?

Well, I’m reading a book called "Tattoos on the Heart" by Gregory Boyle where boundless love and comparison are put into a new perspective. It's shown me how we are only comparable to what God says we are and that we should hold ourselves up to this liberating and unconditional love He freely gives. It’s opened me to a new generation of love and healing that can take someone as “low” as a juvenile and open their heart to something permanent and promising; perfect and powerful: Love. Yes, even those who, in the eyes of the law, have made the greatest most shameful mistakes are still worthy.

The word beloved has been tattooed in our hearts. Personally, to think of myself as a human being actually worthy has twisted my mind and tossed my world. I can hardly grasp the thought. All I know is that I’m one trashy piece of beloved He has ever held in His heart, but regardless I’m still there. And even through all the stabs and bullets, the falling downs and bruises from my screw ups, I’m still standing all thanks to Him. And what's even better is that so are you. Everyone is forgiven and deemed worthy of His great righteous love. Our mistakes are entirely thrown out of question and our circumstances are overridden by Him who is so much greater then our messy lives.

One thing is for sure and that’s you are loved. Broken, falling apart, and a mess of you will always be taken into the arms of forgiveness and grace. Whatever it is that’s weighing you down, or stabbing your heart, killing your security in Him or tanking your self-esteem: shut it down and meditate on these words. You aren’t the worst of who you’ve been in the past or the present, because in His eyes-right now- always, you are loved even still. Throw out your past mistakes and drop the shame you carry from your wounds. Yes even at your lowest darkest point or in your greatest fail and insecurity, regardless if you feel like an okay form, you are loved even still.