Now Playing: Andrew Peterson, "Love and Thunder", Track 3.

I'm not entirely sure why I'm bothering to post on here. Today I meant to start filling out the basics of graduate school applications, but I didn't even begin to bookmark them online. So much for making a good start, though this is just the beginning of the week.

Listening to Andrew Peterson in the evening has become my m.o. so far this fall. I wake up with his songs running through my head, songs about grace.

It's become increasingly evident that I don't understand grace at all. For months and months I've been trying to do the right thing. It's always in the back of my mind. Have I prayed with exactly the right mixture of truth and emotion? Have I participated with every ounce of my being in the worship service? Have I thought about God every moment today? Are my motives completely pure?

Of course this leads to a battle with assurance. Christ said, "Seek and you will find, knock and the door will be opened to you." In my quiet times I've been working through a list of the names of Christ, trying to know Him better. Last week I came to John 6, Christ as the Bread of Life. My father read that chapter to me when I came to him one night, teary-eyed, a little girl asking for help.

I have the same question of that chapter now as then, but it's not as easily answered: "Am I saved?" Now the question is complicated: "Have I come to Christ truly? Have I really and truly looked for Him?" Haunted by Hebrews 12 and the words about Esau who could not find repentance, "though he sought it diligently, with tears".

That response doesn't understand grace--at least, I don't think it does. Does my salvation rest on my coming to Christ, or on the work of Christ? The two are so closely intertwined, faith and salvation to faith, that I can't separate them. What if I don't have that faith?

None of this is helped by an undefinable sense of failure. The culture informs me in no uncertain terms that I'm a loser, someone with a B.A. who's living at home, and jobless for now. Which creates guilt, shame, loneliness, and resentment. An event in my life that I didn't plan isn't very flattering to my sense of control.

The "what ifs" crowd around. What if the relationships had gone smoothly? What if I had found some awesome missions opportunity for the year? If this time is part of God's plan, it feels completely unreasonable, almost petty. There's nothing grand or wonderful about it, just the challenge of obedience to the mundane.

In the end, though, I think it's basically a matter of perspective based on a misunderstanding of grace. If I understood the grace of God, I would know, as Mr. C puts it, that every day is God's gift to me; that what I have today is the very best thing God could give me for today.

Like the woman at the well, I'm thirsty but too confused to recognize the Savior sitting in front of me.