Battle cry of the broken-hearted: GRACE!

The hornet is sleepy as he walks down the porch rail, too tired to fly in autumn's chill. Satan is growing tired as well. He shot that one fiery dart into my soul: the belief that I don't deserve my life and my husband and children deserve better. I lost sight of the fact that God set us up as a family and specifically gave me life, wants me to accomplish something with it, despite my mistakes and weaknesses. All Satan accomplished was to tear a hole in my heart with that dart, a hole for God to fill.

I picture him, battle weary and worn from beating his wings against Christ's back, as Christ kneels to wrap His covering over my wounds. The shields of other saints circle me with prayer as I lie broken on the battle field. The fire on his darts whistles and dies in a spiral of smoke because the Cross has already extinguished them - these fiery darts meant to drag us down, down to the pit of hell.

I picture Jesus, beaten and broken for me on that cross, the scarlet river of His perfect blood washing away each and every sin that Satan would accuse me of. Even that nagging belief that I am too disgraceful to stay living. Christ drank the cup for me, took the price for my sins on His back as He died for me so that I might live.

Should I then say I don't deserve to live? Who am I to determine that I am not the right mother or wife for my family? Didn't He write all the days of my life out before I was even conceived? (Psalm 119)

I drag myself up to a kneeling position. The blood pouring from my side has staunched it's flow, and I reinflate my empty lungs with the heavy breath of His grace. I look down at my armor - dropped because it was too heavy to carry with that wound in my side. That belief weighing down on me with every step: you don't deserve this, you don't deserve this, you don't deserve this. I rationalized that because all my righteousness is as filthy rags, and no one is perfect, no not one, he's right, Satan. I don't deserve this. (Isaiah 64:6 and Jeremiah 2:22)

But Grace shouts out to the contrary: UNDESERVED FAVOR. The Cross proclaims that it is ALREADY GIVEN. Who I am to take the bread of life, already baked, fresh and aromatic, and push it away, saying, You never should have given me the bread of life? He alone is sovereign and He alone is good, and it only from under His wings of salvation that I can say to Satan, This was given to me. I deserve it through Christ alone.

And so I rip it back from His lies, my life, this undeserved favor. It is mine. Not his to take. Given to me by the maker of the universe. If God wants to take me home through cancer, my heart problems, so be it. I will run the race I am given. But I will never again allow Satan to trick me into destroying my body and disappointing and grieving those who walk this sacred path with me. I will not ever again wield a weapon against myself.

I beg God that, whenever my ending comes, He will send a thousand stars of grace out into the sky for others to see. That the odor of the bread of life He so richly gave to us is mine until the last breath He grants me. That I can finish like the young warrior in the video below, and proclaim my heart will choose to say, "Lord, blessed be Your name!"