Is Mercy ever wasted?

Today started out poorly. I hadn't slept well the night before & had to get up earlier than I had wanted to in order to run an errand I should've already run, before I had to be at the church for the Prayer Breakfast. Then, beauty maintenance, grocery shopping, baking & icing the cupcakes & cake for Kimber's party - not to mention the filthy house that needed some attention...I was grumpy...and beat down from another week of failing to be the person, wife, mother, daughter, sister & friend I so wanted to be.

Then Dr. Jay Robertson spoke at our prayer breakfast. And something he said, set off the huge storm of pent-up emotions that had been boiling just underneath the surface, casting dark shadows over everything...even my prayer time. He said, "Christ's authority does not depend on who you are." Wow. I don't know why that spoke to me so powerfully but it was the last piece in the puzzle I needed to begin to see the picture that would one day be completed.

It's not about me. Funny, I had thought all my strivings had been for God's glory. In reality though, most were for my own glory, to be recognized by man. And when that didn't happen, I felt I had failed God and I should change something else about me. This cycle left me easily frustrated, critical, grumpy and down-right no-fun-to-be-around most of the time.

"If people don't like me, then how can God?" How many times did I repeat that to myself? So many I lose count. I was gauging my relationship with God on how other people, like my grandmother, my mother, my brother, responded to me. If I could just be what they need me to be then God could use me.

Today that argument shattered on the sanctuary floor in a pool of my own tears. Instead of relief, I was reminded instead of a promise I had made so many years ago, a vow I had made to God and had never fulfilled. I was mortified at the thought that I had kept God waiting on me while I tried to please these people, who are struggling themselves through their own trials. And when I came face-to-face with my own self-absorbed need to be heard and understood, I was sickened.

What do I have of value to say, but Christ and Him crucified? And who am I that people should listen except to hear His words? Why would He have spent so much time on me in such great and mighty ways, for me to wallow in my own self-pity?

So many missed opportunities.

So many misspent years.

So many wasted mercies.

Whatever I do from this day forward will be to take each step as God directs and fulfill that promise that He allowed me to make (because it was He who prompted me to make it). I don't know how, but I know I must.

It is His will. I am His child. And this is my worship.