i feel like a porcupine baby

How could this even be so, you may ask?

Well, here's the thing. I have been having a hard time lately, and I am realizing that I am a lot like a baby porcupine. Look how stinkin cute they are all scrunched up inside themselves just waiting to develop into a fully grown porcupine, which hopefully the analogy doesn't carry on to that point. But at this stage, just cute little scrunched up harmless baby porcupines, until you look at what is protecting them, this outer shell, not too harmful when placed carefully in one's hand, but if touched too close, is sure to prick you.

Similarly, I am, at the core, a genuinely good, harmless, loving, and lovable human being. However, there is this unfortunate outer shell I use to protect myself, somewhat subconsciously, when I feel as though someone is not carefully approaching my heart, my personal space. With those who grow particularly close to me and have access to the depths of who I am, I can have a tendency to put up the defenses and they are not just walls, they are prickly thorns like those of the porcupine babies pictured above.

Just like everyone else in this world, I have been hurt, I have been wounded, it's called sin. Whether it was mine, someone else's, or the combination of the two, I am wounded, I was born wounded.

What is the solution to such an unfortunate cycle of acting out of my wounds every time I feel my person-hood and dignity is threatened?

Grace.

Grace is like the hand of this person holding these little babies. It is God's gentle, merciful grip carrying us, affirming and reassuring us of His constant and steady Presence in our lives. It is His grace that shields us from pricking, hurting one another so that no matter how close I grow to another, they are protected by grace when my wounds are exposed.

I ask for grace this night. Lord, grant me the grace.

Amen.