(Jessica Fordace--art)
"I have loved you with an everlasting love." says God
"You would not want to be my friend if you knew what I was really like. I have been married and divorced 4 times. I know that would embarrass you."
"Did you know I had an abortion? I was afraid to tell you because I knew you would pull away."
"I am so out of control of my life and I just yell at my children every day. I am so embarrassed of the mom I am and I know God is disappointed with me."
"I was molested by father and I don't know if I can ever feel ok about myself."
"I was a prodigal and lived a wild life and now I am paying for it. I am not the kind of person who belongs in your ministry."
These are many of the secrets women have revealed to me in private over the years. Most of us carry baggage of some kind. But, if we truly understood the amazing, redeeming, generous, overwhelming meaning of salvation and the deep integrity of God's commitment to love us, we would be different women.
If you are surrounded by supposed Christians who point their fingers at you in condemnation, then they need to deal with Jesus. Jesus said to the Pharisees, "He who is without sin, cast the first stone," when the Pharisees wanted to condemn the woman caught in adultery.
"If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature."
Any one. No matter how difficult or broken your family. No matter what your failures or sin. No matter what your past, you are beloved and washed completely new, as if you had never sinned, fallen, been hurt before.
We all have a new story, a new beginning.
Psalm 103 tells us, God is Father of compassion. He sympathizes with your pain, your sorrow, so much that He did surgery to make sure you had a brand new beginning. You are forgiven, You are amazing, Your are wonderful.
Yet, until we get rid of the baggage of phantom voices that haunt us with our past, we cannot move forward into the story God wants us to live, the great ways He wants to bless our lives.
Without identifying the negative voices bombarding us, we’re simply unable to own our lives. It’s essential to our growth that we pinpoint where these voices come from. Maybe the negativity has come from friends, family, or people we’ve met along the way. Perhaps from our past mistakes, failures, or abuse. Sometimes it’s the voice of culture and media, and even our Christian culture and communities.
But God says nothing can separate us from His love.
He says that He has loved us with an everlasting love.
Nothing we have done, nothing we will do, nothing we think or any way that we behave will ever diminish His love for us. If we truly believed this, we would behave differently every day.
He likes our personality, our design, our body, our quirky ways and He calls it good.
Even as He designed every singe snowflake that comes to the earth to be uniquely beautiful, so we are each a unique masterpiece, not to be compared to others, not to conform to the voices of critics, but to live comfortably in our own skin.
Most of the time, I do not worry about what other people think of me anymore--because the more secure I became, because I believed He loved me, the less I cared about what others said or thought.
Scripture tells us: "Fearing people is a dangerous trap, but trusting the LORD means safety." Proverbs 29:25
As long as we live in fear of what others might think or what others may say or think about our children's failures, we will always be on the defensive trying as hard as possible to justify our past, to convince someone that we are not broken, that we have not failed.
All of us fail. All of us have a past. But it is His love, His forgiveness, His heritage that defines the real us and frees us to enjoy life without worrying about our failures or shortcomings. And the more we admit our sin, the more we appreciate His love.
You Are Loved!
Own Your Beautiful Heritage today.
Be encouraged: HERE