Labels

How is everybody's snowpocalypse?

Mine's slightly anti-climatic. It's funny. It was that whole label thing that built up an expectation for this massive snow that never came. And that got me thinking, as the snow came down yesterday how I put labels on things. I label classes. I label weather. I label people.

But where I find the biggest problem for me is how I label myself. I label myself by my talents so I can get hired, I label myself by what I can't do so I don't get hurt, and I label myself by my sin. I assume as soon as I put this label on myself that God can't overcome it, especially the sin one. But I'm slowly, like as slow as humanly possible, realizing that God can slowly peel off the label or he can rip it off roughly. And the label always seems to be in the softest but hardest to get to place of my heart. The label I put on because of my sin means nothing because he put a label on my heart that can be peeled, torn off, or dissolved. I am his daughter.

So as I sat there in my chair (in the corner of the living room), and stared out at the snow. I inhaled the scent of my coffee and just watched this snowpocalpse roll in and disappoint my expectations. But that's what I do to myself. I roll in on my expectations and disappoint myself. Yet God is sitting there shaking his head. I roll in and meet his expectations. He knows I will sin and fail. And fail again. And again. You get the picture. But he still put the label of daughter on me and he loves me for it. So as I sat there I said out loud all the labels I had put on myself because of my sin. It was hard. They were gross words to admit to myself. But I stared at that white pure snow and said "But I am not these things any more. I am a daughter of Zion." And I repeated it. Until I felt that label becoming as real to my head as it was to my heart. I am not my sin. It is a part of my story but I am not changed in God's eyes because of it.

God says "Never will I leave you, never will I forsake you." No matter the label I put on myself.