I was meeting a new friend for coffee recently. She loves the Lord, is in ministry and she’s adorable. Her family is equally as sweet, Jesus-y and adorable so it only makes sense that I turned into a complete psycho getting ready to meet her.
If you’ve read my blog even a few times, I do not need to explain to you my P.M.O. (Psycho Modus Operandi). Psycho Me shows up when I’m running late and yet Psycho Me legitimately thinks and blames everyone else for her lateness. Without warning, Psycho Me snaps at everyone because they are breathing wrong or doing other highly annoying things within five feet of her. Psycho Me can rationalize this completely irrational behavior until she’s no longer crazy at which point Regular Me is there to clean up the damage, feel the weight of the guilt and remorse and to apologize for Psycho Me’s behavior.
This time Psycho Me showed up because I was late again, but this time I was late trying to impress my new Jesus friend. I was late because I wanted my hair to look less like Rosanna Danna Anna’s. I wanted my jewelry, shoes and outfit to look Pinterest worthy. I was late because although I could look and act like the real me on a future visit, this first impression mattered. I was late because of my desire to be accepted, liked and thought of apparently more highly than I think of myself.
This weeks Psycho Me victim was my youngest daughter. She did everything wrong, didn’t move quickly enough and clearly made me late. As she always does, Psycho Me let her victim know ad nauseam all she had done wrong and then sent her off to school saying, “I love you.”
After dropping Faithe at school and before meeting said Jesus friend, I attended worship at Bible study (ironic, huh?). As I sang about Jesus at the cross all I was really thinking about was what a jerk I was to Faithe. I wondered if I would I ever get nicer and if Psycho Me would ever go away. I wondered when I would quit worrying so much about what people thought of me. As I mindless mouthed the words to the song and thought about myself, I realized I had once again become my own great diversion from the cross.
Psycho Me is why Jesus had to die. When I was reminded by that song God can’t even see Psycho Me because of Jesus’ death on my behalf, it was hard to keep thinking about me. When I focused on what Jesus already did instead of where I continue to fail my guilt turned to gratitude. When I thought about God’s grace because I have and will fail again, trying to continue to look more like him felt a blessing instead of a burden.
When I apologized to Faithe that night she looked confused and said she didn’t remember me being mean.
Maybe we should have named her Grace.