I take credit for the work He does. Or I manipulate and share it so I look good. So I gain respect. So I gain, period. So quickly I run to myself and my glory. How easily I intertwine mine with His. Competing with Him. And I pray for His work and to love His people, not for my gain. And then am surprised when I am surrounded with people I need to love that are difficult to and that I do not gain much from loving. And I make them my project instead of seeing us as equal. Instead of seeing the same need I have reflecting in their eyes. I take the work He has done, and who He is alive in me and use it for me. And easily I am distracted. And discouraged. And anxious. And easily I run to manipulating and worrying and gripping.

And His grace covers. And I'm learning to bring it all to Him immediately. To run to Him immediately. To turn to Him as soon as I am conscious of it. I want to heed His word, be sensitive to His spirit and it's promptings, not make a habit of being unaffected and unchanging when He nudges.

And in the midst of my mess, He is still meeting me. He is showing me things in His word. My days are marked with His presence. And I got to pray for someone who needed it today. I looked into the eyes of one of my freshmen girls and told her what He wanted for her and what she would be sacrificing if she settled for less now. I got to speak truth into a friend's life I care deeply about that "washed their feet." And instead of getting all my homework done like planned, I went to a bible study and got to bring and sit with a broken coworker who is caught up in a bunch of lies that have been hurting him for way to long. Someone I would have dismissed as not open at all. And I got to pray my heart out. And as I prayed I felt him shaking next to me and grab my shoulder. I saw him fidget and distract himself and wipe his eyes. And at the end of the night he looked at me with tears in his eyes and said, "I'm getting there."

There is a whole lot of self in me that competes with Him and needs to go. But my gosh is He sweet. And from the rising of the sun to the setting in the evening, may I be praising and proclaiming His name. Because HIS grace covers. And I am His and He is mine. And that's a game changer.

And because nothing. else. matters.

Why me? I don't get it. But I love it. All in and thankful.