His Mercy Is New Every Moment…
Sometimes the biggest thing that holds us back from freedom is when we refuse to forgive ourselves.
I want to share a piece of my story I’ve never shared here. It’s a little long but I pray it helps one woman stuck where I was to find the mercy and love waiting for her in this moment ❤️❤️
We all have past mistakes and past moments of our lives we are not proud of. Things we wish to keep in the dark…
Last week when the hubs and I were cleaning out the storage room I stumbled across my college book stack.
Not the one from my theology studies. The stack from when I was studying Philosophy and women studies at the college of Charleston.
Instead of reflecting on the past good old days it caused me to slip into a dark place of anxiety and shame. My entire demeanor shifted in seconds.
And I said out loud…”I hate that I’m not smart. All of these books. All of this time wasted because I don’t remember anything I read”
Courtney looked at me shocked. He couldn’t believe that I believed that about myself.
I had this root of self hatred pop up and all I wanted to do was bury it again.
Why?
Back in college, Before I moved to Ohio. Before I decided to make a big change in my life I lived in a haze.
I had a horrible drinking problem…like morning through the night. Constantly seeking to numb my insecurity anxiety and fear. I literally almost died several times from alcohol overdose. But it didn’t matter because I had so much self hatred. I was careless with my life…because I didn’t care about me.
I was walking in a conversion and living in the middle. God was calling me but my shame was louder. One day I was at church praising. The next day at the bar drowning…
And the perfectionist in me carried so much shame and called myself hypocrite…
In those years I made a lot of mistakes.
Embarrassing myself through drunken words and actions and for some reason that season had so much shame attached to it.
I thought my life was worthless. I thought my life didn’t matter.
One night I even told a friend the world would be better if I was not in it as I contemplated taking my own life…
He was shocked because on the outside I looked like the life of the party…
But on the inside I was dying.
This is not a piece of my story I share…but after talking with a friend and mentor he suggested I needed share it. What if it helped someone else. And also…
It was time to let it go.
What I recognized when I was looking at that stack of philosophy books was that…
👉🏻I was so angry with myself still…
And the Enemy knew it. He knew how to lie to me with just a hint of truth so I would cling to the shame.
20 years later. After confessing and prayer and so much heart work…
I was still carrying this lie and this shame…
I have been reflecting on the woman caught in adultery…
The Woman Caught in adultery was about to be stoned…
In my reflection those yelling at her about to stone her…
They were me…
My anger. My perfectionism. My fear. My doubt. My shame…
Yet Jesus…
He loved her…He did not condemn…he forgave her.
He set her free…
And he offers that freedom to me and you.
If God himself comes to us in mercy…
Why do we still condemn ourselves in shame?
I had to make a step. Do something I’d never done.
❤️ I had to tell that little 21 year old girl I loved her. I forgive her. And thank her for never giving up and always getting back up.
❤️I had to tell those pieces of me holding stones they had no place and Ask God to forgive me for my lack of forgiveness to myself.
❤️I had to thank the Lord for the friends he placed in my life to keep me safe. To walk with me. To help me. To guide me.
❤️I had to look at these books and see them not as evidence of a stupid girl who was a waste but of a young woman hungry for truth and freedom.
God doesn’t waste a drop of our story if we give it all to him and trust him.
You don’t have to agree with your mistake in order to forgive yourself.
You don’t have to hold onto them to keep yourself humble.
And maybe you worry what would others think?
I know I used to worry all the time that stories of me would somehow surface or photos (thankful there was no social media back then).
But the truth is It doesn’t matter…
Jesus forgives us.
His mercy is new every morning…
He wants us to see what he sees when he looks to us.
And he wants our scars to be a place for his light to shine the hope and freedom He gives into the lives of others still stuck in the dark.
We can’t do that if we judge ourselves harshly.
We can’t do that if we walk in shame.
We can’t do that if we keep pieces of us in the dark.
So today on Divine Mercy Sunday…
Where can you let him in? Where can you lay before him and share your heart?
Imagine you are that woman…and instead of focusing on the sin focus on the savior…
What will he write in the sand?
Forgiven?
My beloved?
Beautiful daughter?
Precious child?
Take some time to release it.
Like one of my favorite songs says
My chains are gone
I’ve been set free
My God, my Savior has ransomed me
And like a flood His mercy rains
Unending love, Amazing grace
Thanks for letting me share my heart ❤️❤️
