Improvement past Calvinism

I am wanting to write something every day this month.  October is my birth month, and in my opinion, the most magical month there it.  It has fall, Halloween, Columbus Day, and just has a feeling to it.  We think of pumpkins, baked goods, hay rides, crisp nights, and ghosts.  I love it.

It is also leading up to the 500th anniversary of the tragedy that was the Protestant Reformation.  I used to be all about the Reformation, when I was a Calvinist.  But now I see how one huge crack led to more cracks, and is now tens of thousands of splinters in the body of Christ.  It is so sad!  We long for the church to reunite in love and peace.  It is what we need.  Someday.

I have been thinking this week about improvement and healing.  I know I write about healing quite often, but it bowls me over to see such things going on in my life.  It was almost as if until this past 2 years, my belief in God's power was an intellectual exercise.  It was as if we had to be not bad for our lives to be in order.  People who screwed up their lives with sin and foolishness were pretty much doomed to the fruit of their labours, and their bad choices would haunt them forever.  God's forgiveness was almost an begrudging "yes, I'll save you...but only just as much as it takes to not go to hell".  But their grossness would follow them around the rest of their lives.

I am currently sifting through trying to understand where my negative, judgmental view of God came from.  I think I know where.  But it's pervasive and very hard to put down!  Even though I knew God loved me, it was as if he did so reluctantly, and was so disgusted with the choices I'd made that he gave me grace in order to stand me.  That was Calvinism to me.  I was disgusting, and God deigned to love me. 

I never saw any improvement in my life or self.  My heart was longing for God...I loved Him, and I wanted Him.  But I was so stuck in sin and negative thinking.  I had these bad, sinful habits that I could not kick.  My depression closed in around me.  It was so hard for me to see any other way. 

It's hard even now to see such amazing changes in my heart and not wonder why it took so long.  I wish I could have cast off this sadness long ago, but God gave it to me now.  And now, I will rejoice in it.