Lately I've really been trying to consciously pray and spend time with God. I realized what a spotty, tumultuous relationship we've had and that it's been my fault for not being very faithful. I can easily praise God when things suddenly go my way and easily cry out to Him for help when things suddenly take a turn for the worst. I can see God as some sort of abstract pagan concept to be petitioned or pleased. Faithlessness breeds faithlessness. But God, I have been told, is a God we can know and experience. I always thought, well, maybe that's just not something I'm capable of. But consciously becoming more contemplative has made it clearer where the problems lie.

I've also been a Christian for perhaps almost two years, with this general time period as something of an anniversary. Since there is no date I can point to, perhaps I should say it's been two years before I started any sort of journey with my faith in Christ. Some of it has been documented here. Thinking back two years is a little hard - I was groping in the dark for something more, and the cultural lens of Christianity had an appealing counter-cultural quality to it. I knew the world was broken. However, it was harder to see the brokenness in myself...to see the manipulations in my interactions with others, to see I was still searching for some tangible love in such a backwards fashion. I certainly wasn't the repentant sinner, but in my pragmatic fashion it seemed harmless to give this worldview a chance.

And somehow here I am, in a place I never thought I would be. Weird.

In my prayers and self-reflection, I've realized I've overlooked an extremely important component: grace and its relation to forgiveness. I have been extremely ungracious with myself and others have been extremely ungracious with me (and me with them) and it just becomes so all-pervasive. We see hundreds of advertisements every day telling us exactly how we must earn our worth. We are measured and prodded in so many ways, at so many angles. Refusing grace out of some unworthiness, when God freely gives it, is such arrogance. And often it's caused me to look at (and expect) things as a system of exchange. There's a Thom Yorke song that begins with, "Please excuse me, but I've got to ask. Are you only being nice because you want something?" and continues to "You know all the answers, so why do you ask? I am only being nice because I want someone, something." An assumption easily becomes a self-fufilling prophecy.

No wonder the Cross has never meant very much to me - I've been so focused on the "Yeah, we really didn't deserve that. We suck." part that I ignore the rest and end up fighting the entire concept. And it's probably pretty hard to have a very good relationship with God with that view. So I'm glad I've been learning about it more. And it's probably due to praying more.

I realized my realization (lolz) through a conversation about proper relationships with a friend, who was sort of fretting over how he could ever be awesome enough for a relationship (as opposed to priesthood or something). "Well, if someone likes you in the right way, they'll like you exactly for who you are and you don't have to strive and impress them and be witty and look nice all the time. They just like you because of who you are." "Wow." "And you have to be that way, too." "How can I ever deserve that? Someone shouldn't like you if like, you're not the best they can do." "Well, that's the point. You can't earn it at all. That'd defeat the whole purpose. Then it'd just be like anything else."

Which is kind of funny, because I just now realized my name MEANS that (well, the French version of the Latin version of the Hebrew version). I always took "grace" to mean some physical trait. How can I have never really wondered about the concept behind my own name? I love names and etymology yet not until recently did I explore this thing.

Anyway, bringing it back to two years ago. I should not look at my past self with the pity of the enlightened but with the grace of someone who better knows God's love. And it's through this love we are restored...which is no longer just a theological concept I intellectually submit to, but something more. Hooray for learning the obvious :)