Then came the turning point, where I began to fight my way through and develop the tools I needed to fight the battles I hadn't prepared for before. I sharpened swords I hadn't thought I'd need to use and slowly won victories I'd had to work twice as hard for. I learned to rely on God in ways I thought I was already sure of and reinforced my faith where I hadn't realized it was crumbling.
Now I'm coming out the other side, in some ways. I'm quickly coming upon my second chance to get this right, my test to see if I've truly learned what I needed to in order to be able to deal with myself, the person that I hadn't known I was. It's been a long road in some ways and flown by in others, but one of the most important things I've learned throughout it is that my struggles make me who I am, but that doesn't reduce me to my struggles.
That's always been one of my favorite things about Jesus - He took the time when He was on earth to look past what the eyes of the world saw and act on what He saw with His eyes of love. A man possessed by demons, a woman with an immoral past, people afflicted by diseases seen as curses in that time - Jesus spoke with them all. He showed them His love even before granting them their miracles, by looking past their debilitating conditions and treating them as people. Some of them had never or very rarely had the respect of human decency before; others had lost it through actions of their own choosing. Jesus didn't ignore that; He exorcised the demons, He forgave sins, He healed blindness and paralysis. But in the ways He chose to do that, He offered them more than just the loosing of their chains. He offered a second chance, a life wiped clean, a path to follow after Him with love and gratitude.
What that means to me is that Jesus sees past my struggles, my insecurities, every doubt I've ever had, every time I've argued with Him and tried to run from what He set before me. It means that He looks at me with the same love with which He saw those beggars, paralytics, and demon hosts. He chose to look at me when I was huddled on the floor afraid to even say His name and draw His attention, and He chose to tell me, "It's okay. We're going to get those chains off of you. I love you with an everlasting love, and that means I'm going to be here every step of the way."
It means that He sees me as more than the fights I wasn't ready for. He sees the fights He wins every day for me. He sees the child that He created in His own image, and - I believe - He is excited to bring her once again out of darkness and into His marvelous light.
My struggles, my battles, the every day on earth that I can't understand; it's all like a tangled mess of string to me. Even after hours and hours of working on trying to untangle it myself, I get lost and often more tangled than before. I also occasionally see a cloth that some of the strings seem to attach to, and some days it's one more frustration, one more piece that doesn't seem to fit.
When I get to see Jesus, I imagine Him taking that cloth that was wrapped up in knots and loose ends. The final few strings will be freshly cut. And He'll turn the cloth over to show me a marvelous tapestry, with intricacies and details that I could never have even imagined.
And in this place in my imagination, I can almost hear Him saying, "Those knots and tangles are a part of who you are, but they are not how I see you."
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