The Ragamuffin Stuff

This was so moving, so real, and I identified with so much of it(although it was written by a 50-something man; while I am a 30-something woman) that I had to borrow it and make it my own...

I don’t like it that I can read Matthew 5:23-24 and reluctantly, at best, take a single step toward obeying it.
I don’t like that I can sin and then condemn someone else’s sin in almost the same breath.
I regret that I’ve spent so much of my life seeking to make myself happy in ways that never led to real happiness at all.
I don’t like it that I’ve accumulated so much stuff I don’t need.
It causes me real sorrow that I’ve said “I love you” far to little in my life, especially to the people I love the most.
I don’t like the fact that some think I'm a saint, when I’ve done nothing more than be an unlikely servant.
I hate the difference between what I know and what I do.
I don’t like that part of me that thinks everyone should listen to what I say.
I wish I could see myself as God sees me, both in my sinfulness and in the Gospel of Jesus.
I regret using so little of my life’s time, energy and resources for worship and communion with God.
I despise that part of me that always finds fault, and uses that knowledge to put myself above others.
I regret taking so few risks in the cause of living a God-filled life.
I despise the shallowness of my repentance for sin that has caused hurt and pain for others.

But...
I am grateful for the endless mercies of the Lord, and the amazing fact that those mercies extend to me, today and every day.
I am grateful that Christ,my substitute, took this sorry life, pathetic obedience and lethargic worship and exchanged it for his perfect righteousness.
I am grateful that the Holy Spirit is remaking and raising the dead- even me.
I am grateful that one day I will look at all these failures and regrets and they will have been transformed into the very glory of Jesus Christ himself.
I am grateful that God has cast the very things I most dislike about myself into the depths of the sea and has removed them as far as the east is from the west.
I am grateful that when I return in shame and embarrassment, my Father meets me running, covers me with his gladness and throws me a party in the presence of the naysayers and pharisees.
I am grateful that Jesus takes these things I loathe about myself and says “It is finished. Come you good and faithful servant. Enter into the joy of your Lord. Today you will be with me in paradise.”
I am grateful Jesus says “Before I have called you servant, but now I will call you friend.”
I am grateful Jesus says “Who condemns you? There is now no condemnation because you are in me and I am in you. If I am for you, who can be against you? Go, and sin no more.”

adapted fromhttp://www.internetmonk.com/archive/im-classic-confession#more-5497