By Allie Wallace - Class of 2024
Back in October, the Charlotte Fellows and the Davidson Fellows participated in Barnabas Basic Training, a day-long seminar about how to have deeper conversations and love others better. My understanding of dignity and depravity became so much richer through this course. I learned more about how God made us in our dignity to have desires and longings, yet we live in a fallen world where our own depravity and disappointment is very real. We were made for relationships, yet often try to live life on our own.
But God. In his radical grace and love, He has shown me that true dependence on Him will not fail. He finds me in my hiding. He assures me when I’m afraid. He calls me to move towards Him. He meets me in the here and now.
I heard a quote by Jack Miller very early on in my time in Charlotte that has stuck with me since. I keep coming back to it in awe of both dignity and depravity on full display. Miller says, “Cheer up! You're a worse sinner than you ever dared imagine, and you're more loved than you ever dared hope.”
God has met me in the wrestling of both. He has met me in the acknowledgement of my own sin and has shown me His radical grace and love. He has provided people and places for me to see the dignity and depravity in my own story. I am reminded of His kindness towards me in allowing me to process the longings and disappointments of my story in my time each week in counseling at The Barnabas Center. I am reminded of His love for me as I meet with my mentor who helps me to see the beauty in my brokenness. I am reminded that He made me to desire relationships as I have grown in friendship with my fellow fellows.
Romans 5 says, “You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us… if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through this life!”
The death of Christ reveals both my dignity and depravity. Both are revealed at the cross. May the cross lead me to the continual uncovering of my desperate need for God.