Auctioneer's Platform... Part 2

I am just like her. I have been bought, but I don't know how to just be. Years of slavery have left me scrambling, doing, working, striving, pleasing. I feel disqualified when I mess up. I beat myself up and search for a way to be punished when I fail. Why? Because I don't understand the Grace of God. I don't get it. When I am doing well, I feel like God loves me and wants to use me. I feel like I have done something to earn His love, to earn His goodness. Because I think that I can earn his acceptance, when I fail I feel like I deserve harsh punishment. It's like one tiny mistake sends me plummeting down to the jagged rocks below where I have to somehow pick myself back up, clean myself off, get myself healed or fixed, and make the hike back up to the top of the mountain where God loves and accepts me.
I don't understand grace.
I know in my head that I can never do good enough to earn anything from Him. He freely gives it all. But it is still in the process of making its way to my heart.
I am realizing how filthy I am. I am completely and utterly filthy. There is nothing in me that deserves love or acceptance. Nothing. I am a ragamuffin. (Yes, I am reading Ragamuffin gospel right now...) 
I am so undeserving of any good thing. I am just a filthy, worthless, prostitute.
But.
His grace is sufficient.
His grace doesn't see my rags.
Grace clothes me in a beautiful gown.
His grace doesn't expect me to do.
Grace knows that Jesus already did for me.
His grace doesn't condemn me when I mess up.
Grace covers my ugly.
His grace doesn't let me fall and slam into the jagged rocks below.
Grace is there to catch me.


I am a dumb sheep.
I take off, full speed, and dive off the side of the cliff.
Even though I know the cliff is there. Something in me just can't resist. I must run to the edge, full speed.
Two things about grace for this little sheep.
1. Grace is calling me back away from the cliff's edge, but when I dive off, Grace is at the bottom to catch me. Grace puts me on His shoulders and carries me back up the mountain. (And then the process starts over... because I don't get it yet.)
2. As I dash for the cliff, Grace, the Good Shepherd, reaches out His staff and hooks it around my neck to pull me back in. Ouch. That staff hurts. I hate it. I kick and scream and fight. But that staff, though it is painful at times, is grace at work.

I don't understand yet that Jesus paid the price for me so that I don't have to pay it.
I don't understand yet that I can do nothing to be good enough for him... or anyone else for that matter.
I don't understand yet that His grace is sufficient for me.

But I will.
Oh, I will.


I am convinced of this, He who began the good work in me is faithful to carry it out to completion.
I am convinced that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separated me from the love of God in Christ Jesus my Lord.
I am convinced that He sees my ugly, and He loves me anyway.
I am convinced that He paid the price to set me free.
I am convinced that He set me free simply so that I could be free.

I don't have to perform for Him.

I don't get grace.

But I will.
Oh, I will.