More Pondering....(click on the book titles if you want to check them out)

I recently read The Shack and am currently reading Abba's Child. Both have had and continue to greatly challenge my thinking about myself and God. I highly recommend both. Because I'm still working through Abba's Child, I can't express exactly what it is all about. I can tell you that its about finding your true identity as Abba's Child. I have struggled this year with who I am and what is exactly my purpose and why does this christian life seem so dull. I've been God's child since forever, meaning I can't remember not being saved. As a child I experienced many times of joy and passion and realness with God. But I've grown up and decided maybe I'm too casual with God, not in enough awe. I should have more of a concept of how "evil" I am. And now I'm here, in this drudgery of christianity. bored at church, sick of churchy words that have no reality in my life, sick of the guilt of not preforming correctly in serivice, starting to wonder if God really likes me or if he is so sick of my failures that he has left me. I know its not supposed to be like this. My spirit testifies in me that God is not those things and that there must be more.So I'm looking, and I'm being awakened to hope and to seeing that I am NOT failing God, that he is in fact "very fond" of me. What a concept!!! =) I wanted to share a paragraph from Abba's Child that pretty much describes where I've been. I share because its a lonely place and one that maybe some of you have been too. I want you to know that there is hope, truely knowing God is not any of the above. p.54 "Finally, I accepted my brokenness....I had never come to terms with that. Let me explain. I knew I was broken. I knew I was a sinner. I knew I continually disappointed God, but I could never accept that part of me. It was a part of me that embarrassed me. I continually felt the need to apolozie, to run from my weaknesses, to deny who I was and concentrate on WHAT I SHOULD BE. I was broken, yes, but I was continually trying never to be broken again-or at least to get to the place where I was very seldom broken..." That's me, caught in the performance aspect of my relationship with God. Thinking his favor hinges on if I have been obedient enough and have not been broken lately. But the truth is, I'm so exteremely broken in everything I say and do, that I don't even know I'm broken.But God knows all that and not only loves me but LIKES me and has compassion on me! Amazing! And he wants me to stop beating that broken self up and embrace her and bring her to him. I don't know that I've worked anything out yet...its all new thoughts. You can't change your thinking over night....but God is so good, so tender and loving. So much more than I ever realized.