Whole Again

We've all heard the hymn. At least the first verse.

"What can wash away my sin? Nothing but the blood of Jesus.

What can make me whole again? Nothing but the blood of Jesus.

O precious is the flow that makes me white as snow.

No other fount I know. Nothing but the blood of Jesus."

We sang this beautiful truth at church this morning and I felt my lips curl up into a grin when I sang the words "whole again." I could not help but be overcome at the thought that Jesus makes me whole. I've been thinking about it all day. Whole again. Whole. An adjective I never would have dreamed could be used to describe me has been ascribed to me by my Father through his Son, my intercessor and Savior. 

I was sitting in the passenger's seat after eating lunch an hour or so after church and I thought, I can't believe I turned out this way. 

I often describe myself as having self-destructive tendencies. I could look back on my life and quickly give a list of times I did something that could literally only bring me harm, and knowing so, dove right in. I see all the times I longed to rebel- got a rush off of doing something that hurt me. I was in a constant state of falling apart. I was quite literally a mess. So much so that for awhile my friends would make light things and jokingly (but seriously) call me unstable. Like I'm talking people would make memes of me with the word "UNSTABLE" at the bottom. I remember describing myself to a friend as a broken toy that still functions but it's just a little off, so it will never work quite the way it's supposed to. What can make me whole again? Wholeness was never even on my radar. Broken. That was my identity. I wore it proudly. 

So today, I was looking back at all those reckless urges, bad decisions, gutting regrets, disastrous breakdowns, and I could not believe I turned out this way. None of those decisions wrecked me to an irreparable level. That fact alone is an incredible act of grace that's hard for me to even comprehend. Not only was I not destroyed by myself, but I've been transformed miraculously by God's grace. 

That rebellion I can see in myself so clearly isn't singular to me. We are all children of wrath until God calls us to himself and makes us heirs to his Kingdom. Romans 3 says that there is no one righteous. No one seeks God. We don't do anything good and we don't even want to. Rebellion is what all of humanity is born into. 

But that is not where my story ends. That is just the beginning. Through Jesus Christ's perfect life and death, my debt was cancelled, and through his resurrection, his righteousness was transferred to me. Romans 8 tells me this incredible identity I now have. Child. Heir. No longer a slave to fear. Inseparable from God's love. More than conqueror. Not condemned. Free. 

Over the past couple of years, Jesus has let me see himself in a way that has wrecked my whole life. This entire identity I had settled in with of being a natural disaster who couldn't love and couldn't be loved became completely untrue. I was unraveled. Slowly and ever so gently, my Jesus has peeled back the layers of my old identity- rebellious, destructive Lydia who's probably crying right now- and shown me the truth of my new identity that I get to have because of Him.

Over the course of that time, I have really only started to feel whole in recent months. I have felt myself tending away from self-destructive desires. I have noticed myself reacting to situations that would've typically unraveled me without really being affected at all because I have learned and come to believe that I have a foundation in Christ- that his love is strong. I have wanted relationships that are healthy and mature. I have felt the longings of my heart shift.

Whole again. 

I sat in the passenger's seat today and thought of all the ways my life could have and should have turned out. But God graciously, graciously, graciously chose to deliver me from the destruction of myself, and slowly but surely, he is mending me and filling in all my broken parts. I could never have made myself whole. And neither can you. Trust me, I tried. Only in complete, sweet surrender was I made whole. And my journey has only just begun.

Wholeness. An identity given to me by my gracious Savior who is able to save me to the uttermost and deliver me from my rebellion and rescue my heart by giving me a new identity: Chosen. Treasured. Loved. Accepted. Whole. 

Nothing but the blood of Jesus.