“Will you accept that you are radically accepted?”

This question Sunday broke me down. I am accepted.

A few years ago I wrote a blog post about being accepted to law school. I bragged about the beginning of my journey. I was ready to prove a lot of people wrong.

And I did prove wrong those who were so negative when I set my sights on law school.

I was never really accepted throughout junior high and high school. I went to a Christian school, and they were, at times, terrible people.

Entering adulthood, I learned less and less to care about these opinions.

They didn’t know me. They didn’t know what I was capable of.

They weren’t true friends. It was easy to leave behind.

But Sunday, as I participated in the prayerful exercise the preacher was leading, it closed with repeating twice, “I am a child of God, in whom He is well pleased,” after he led us in intentionally bringing to mind the negativity of the past.

This is a staggering thought.

He knows me. He knows what I am capable of.

Yet He’s still sticking around.

My personal awareness of my depravity makes this hard to accept, but at the same time, my awareness of this radical acceptance in the middle of my depravity makes me speechless.