Becoming: Choosing Grace

By J.E. Mayhew

During the summer of my 15th birthday, after several years flirting with rebellion, my willful descent hit full swing. Within the first year, I had dropped out of high school, and had given myself over to selfishness, criminality, and addiction. I had forsaken choice and accountability for my desires, emotions, and appetites. My hope resided in the next experience, the next stimuli, rarely projecting far into the future.

I was lost.

Misery, pain, addiction, lasciviousness, and indulgence condescendingly sated my body's parasitic desires with the brutal intention of emaciating and ultimately destroying my soul. I deprived myself of the mental, emotional, social, and spiritual growth that is essential during those crucial adolescent years.

My addiction to physical and emotional stimuli robbed me of an accurate sense of reality, including an understanding of love, relationship, and how I fit into the world around me. That deprivation only encouraged a deeper dive into the abyss.

Sin, and the associated despair which accompanies honest, though short-sighted, reflection, produced a profound loneliness that challenged my very existence. So much of my consciously destructive behavior can be attributed to my vain attempts to mask the deeper more enduring spiritual damage caused by my thoughts, actions and ultimately my perspective of myself and those around me. Consolation in my "natural self" only aggravated the wound and perpetuated the destructive cycle.

In spite of my selfish retreat, God was ever present. He remained throughout my struggles and rebellion. Due to His infinite grace and love, my path gave me experience and understanding without becoming forever lost. In mercy, the Lord hedged up the way before me that I did not prosper in my pursuits. Ever designed to humble and temper my impulsiveness, Jesus Christ walked with me on my darkest road.

If only I had the eyes to see and ears to hear the Lord's whisperings to me earlier, that I might have avoided disaster. To have walked the high road and followed the promptings of the Holy Spirit, I would have been spared much of my deepest heartache and sorrow. Yet, the Lord in His mercy, took my rebellion and turned it to my experience and good in helping me better understand the evil that I might more readily understand and appreciate His love.

I have inherent worth in that I originate from heavenly parentage with divine purpose and potential. I have been bought with a price, infinite, and eternal. The Son of God offered Himself upon the alter to atone for my sins and transgressions. He gave all, that through His grace I might overcome my weaknesses as I choose Him; as I choose life, agency, and joy. The grace of Jesus Christ gives power to my righteous choices and covenants, and opens an effectual door that I may return to live with Him, and our Father, in the kingdom of God.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1733409300
• ISBN13: 9781733409308
• Release Date: September 2019
• Publisher: J. E. Mayhew
• Length: 140 Pages
• Weight: 0.47 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 6.0" x 9.0"