adoption

"You don't have to do that anymore...I am not like your old family."

this is what He says to me. He looks at me, at things i am holding on to, and says i don't need them anymore. i hold onto my pride, my reputation--things i feel i need to live.

i think that without people looking on me with approval and respect, that i cannot be sustained. that i will wither away in sadness and fear and loneliness. so i hide these things, because i fear that i will not have them otherwise and that i need to provide for myself.

but in my new family, things don't work like that. He provides for me, and i will never go hungry again. its kinda silly, i guess, that i hold on to these things as if i need them, when i've been given so much more by being adopted into His family. it doesn't fully make sense to me. there's no way that He actually cares about me that much, and pursues me that intensely.

but He does.

and that's the good news that i call the gospel.