I am Her: the Holy Spirit convicts of righteousness in real time

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Today as I was doing laundry the Lord was working in my heart. You see laundry used to be the bane of my existence. As a single mom it always seems like there's piles of it everywhere (like seriously how do they go through so many outfits in a day??), loads left in the washer, running the same load over and over again. And the staining, and the shrinking, and the hanging, let's just say it gives me nightmares. The Lord however in his abundant grace has given me an increased discipline over the past 18 months, since I began this road to recovery that is walking with Jesus. What in the past seemed near impossible has become routine.

I was totally over putting it away and my body was aching to throw in the towel on everything for the day, to numb, to cope, to fill, to quit. In my heart however, I wanted to honor my family with diligent and loving service, so I dragged myself through, willing by the Lords power to simply finish. Making sure it was all put away as soon as it was done or risk it sitting in a basket for a week, or more. I was worn out, running on fumes of sleep, physically and Spiritually drained from a difficult week of life and my continued focus on holy habits was the only thing keeping it together. After months and months of pushing myself to track and assess my daily habits, I had started somewhere along the way showing up as her. The one He says that I am. Melissa, but in Christ. The Holy Spirit struck my heart with conviction of my righteousness. My newness in Him. The purity of my heart and the fruit of transformation in my life as a harvest of sound mind, and self control. An abundance of discipline manifesting when I was weak in my flesh.

My body however, was conditioned to cater to comfort and pleasure. I was born a slave to sin, an addict and an idolator. My body had 26 years of believing it's lies and lording over me, then a sudden death. While my soul has been reborn, my body's not so sure. You see, she holds a lot of trauma and old pain, long ago supressed. Oh, some scars and some wrinkles too. Shes not shiny and clean, but by faith she lives no more, now it is Christ who lives in her. I am mourning her. It's been 18 months and yet I still don't know how to live without the structure and saftey found in her mortal limitations. I don't fully who I am without her. Yet I go to the one who has all the answers and he's teaching me day by day.

He's training me in righteousness by his discipline. To someone without understanding it sounds like punishment and bondage but to the redeemed of the Lord they know it to be truth and freedom. My body cried out from the pain it still felt. It longed to be worshiped; to be bowed to. In very real physical and spiritual exhaustion I lamented to the Lord, "I am weary of being her. It was so much easier not being her." An ambassador of the Lord, and heir to the Kingdom, a prophet to the nations, bearing the weight of the responsibility of the judgement of those called to teach. The standard of the Lord is impossible to reach. How short I fall time and time again. Yet God in His grace would redeem me. Give me new life. In the mundane of the routine he would speak to me giving gifts of revelation and understanding. The Holy Spirit convicting me of the gift of the righteousness of Christ that was given to me so freely. Bought with the price of the precious blood of the Lamb. I began to praise the Lord in my heart. "Death to the flesh, means life to me."