This is how I have been seeing myself. Such a visual for me how I 'think' I without Your grace overpowering me just rip that top sheet up and it's done. Under the sheet is this soft carbon(?) and on it are all the marks, words, actions that I have had said to me. The power I give those words....when all power needs to be in You. To love You more than I love myself......My daughter just challenged me with some hard words spoken from a place she's learned and out of the love she has for Christ and wants for me and then she gave me this verse to help....tore

Romans 8:31-38 (The Message)

^31-39So, what do you think? With God on our side like this, how can we lose? If God didn't hesitate to put everything on the line for us, embracing our condition and exposing himself to the worst by sending his own Son, is there anything else he wouldn't gladly and freely do for us? And who would dare tangle with God by messing with one of God's chosen? Who would dare even to point a finger? The One who died for us—who was raised to life for us!—is in the presence of God at this very moment sticking up for us. Do you think anyone is going to be able to drive a wedge between us and Christ's love for us? There is no way! Not trouble, not hard times, not hatred, not hunger, not homelessness, not bullying threats, not backstabbing, not even the worst sins listed in Scripture:

They kill us in cold blood because they hate you.
We're sitting ducks; they pick us off one by one.
None of this fazes us because Jesus loves us. I'm absolutely convinced that nothing—nothing living or dead, angelic or demonic, today or tomorrow, high or low, thinkable or unthinkable—absolutely nothing can get between us and God's love because of the way that Jesus our Master has embraced us.

I love only because You loved me first and that.....well that is hard to remember.....and it makes me a brand new magic slate.......wow for a young woman she is very wise. I am blessed and forgiven more than any one deserves. Please Jesus through the help of Your Spirit I will remember that today. And operate out of the vulnerability such a promise could offer me....i have much to learn and pray for more and more THAT to be what drives me.