Carol - Thank you for writing this.  Following Jesus is difficult and very costly and yet it remains so compelling and attractive to me that I continue to attempt to live into the way of Jesus.

You said:  "I start here: I am a fallen, broken person, jealously loyal to my own ideas, selfishly committed to my own ways of seeing, in need of a hand of grace to help me stand free of the misguided assumptions that hold me hostage, that whisper I’m somehow of more value than those others not like me."

I think that is a great place to start each day and so I am going to print that out and put it where I can see it and read it each morning.