Guilt and grace

1. When reading this post understand that I do not have it all figured out.
2. Understand that this is how I process and I am sure in a year it will be much more developed.

I'm the type of person that feels guilty a lot. For example: if someone says "hey I need to talk to you about something." I immediately start catastrophizing. Oh no, what did I say/do. I'm in trouble. crap. It is the worst. My mom and dad know this about me, so they typically say, "hey, I want to talk to you about something, you are not in trouble, Mom is not pregnant and we are not moving." (Those are usually my three questions when mom and/or dad say they need to talk).

Another thing that sucks about feeling this way a lot is that I tend to beat myself up a lot and have unrealistic expectations that I put on myself and others. I am having to learn to let myself off the hook. My friend Lissy from undergrad were talking about this once and she talked about grace (a concept that in my black and white brain is difficult to grasp) she told me that I needed to understand that God has it for me and I need to learn to extend it to myself and others. That conversation was over a year ago, but I think about it a lot.

Recently I had a talk with my friend Mark about Grace and Truth and how I am pretty good at the truth part and really suck at the grace part. He emphasized me needing to get some more grace in my life.

He told me to listen to this sermon. http://liberatenet.org/2013/03/04/gods-two-words-2/  by Tullian THASLSkjasdf@kja*sdfll1832409. A very difficult last name to pronounce. I'm not going to tell you all about the sermon, because you should just go listen to it.

I will say that a part that I really needed to hear was the my internal musts and shoulds and condemnations and attempts to be whatever it is I am striving for are only out shouted by the External voice of the Lord's "It is Finished."

So if you are like me and are really struggling through some of these concepts. Then this sermon will probably do ya some good. It is 50 minites long, so carve out time time for it.

One last thing. Something I have to keep in mind when I am piling the guilt on is Dr. Layman's voice telling me "God grows things"

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Jesus, Teach me. Free me. Show me how to receive and extend grace. Break me when I need it and then put me back together. In Christ's Name, Amen.