A meditation for confession and redemption

Father in heaven, gracious maker of my being, of all that is seen and unseen; the giver of all that is good, and the sustainer and light of life.

You are the one who is deserving of every ounce of praise and glory and honour I can eke out of these bones, and it is to you that I come in this hour. 

I come naked in my frailty, in my humanness, in my failure, and in my need of you.

It is the only way, I have learned, that there is to come before the one who is infinite and matchless.

You are the one who, regardless of how many pitiable postures, poses, or affectations I attempt, sees past them and knows every tedious detail about myself.

The terms on which you insist that I come are simple: truth and authenticity, not façade.

And you know the truth. You know the truth of where I am just as you knew where Eve was when you asked her there in the garden.

But like Eve, it is I who has the difficulty in coming to terms with the truth of where I am and where I have been. Why is it that I still do the very things I hate and that make me feel ashamed?

Truth is the hardest thing to face sometimes – the truth of my failures, of my dismal pride, my wide selfish streak, the thoughts that circulate in my head.

Often it's simply that I don’t want to be inconvenienced, and I don't want to bend. I can’t be bothered with self-control or practising kindness. But I bring damage and pain into others' lives that can't be undone.

I default to my own unredeemed ways instead of your perfect ways.

There are also many times I forget that this life you've called me to is about you and not me. I slip into seeking your glory for myself, using your name for my gain instead of encouragement, hope and healing for those whose space overlaps with mine.

There are many hours in which I spend your gifts to me on my own pleasure, in self-preoccupation and self-absorption, paying more attention to empty and meaningless things like likes and loves than hungry skeletons, ravaged innocence, exploitation of the marginalized, and a billion other injustices.

The truth is, I often choose to serve me over you or anyone else.

Oh, God, the truth is ugly sometimes. How do you know all this about me without turning away forever? How do you keep calling me back to you? How do you keep forgiving? How do you never give up? How do you still love me and keep your face turned towards me? How do you still trust me to wear your name, and to be a bearer of your truths? 

All the ways I fall short; all the ways I have “stolen grace from heaven” as the song goes. 

No condemnation, not even a hint of it, as I face my truths here in your presence. Instead, you lift my burdens, you banish despair, you flood me with renewal, and you bring me to rest.



You remind me that I am your forgiven beloved. 

But you go far beyond forgiveness. You take this big ball of ugliness that is of my own making and you promise that if I take my hands off of it you will put your hands to it, and, like an artist weaving a new tapestry, you will begin the divine mission of working it all out for good.

Undeserving, am I, undone.  

It's become plain that redemption is your specialty. 

More and more, I learn my own dependence on you for every breath. Ever more I realize that I always was dependent, even when I didn’t know it so well as I know it now.

Your grace is poured out like a flowing river, a healing balm, filling all the places that I, in my hole-riddled being, leave open and gaping.



More and more, I see how your grace was especially poured over me when I didn’t know how much I needed it, when I didn’t seek you for it, when I was blind to it.

This same grace comes to me today, and I’m glad that I’m a little more awake. 

Father, I come to you because there is nothing else and no one else to whom to turn as I can turn to you. I am grateful.

As of yet, I haven’t seen all the ways in which you are already redeeming all this yuck, but I know that redemption is your specialty. It is on its way, and I'm sitting in a front-row seat.

So today I am resting in the knowledge that you are good, that your kindness is great, that I am restored, and that there isn’t a detail that will escape your notice. 

Your mercies are renewed every morning, and redemption is your specialty. 

Thank you.