These three words crawl under my skin like a spider.
To me, they mean:
Someone disagrees with me.
They probably think my idea is stupid.
I have a huge chance of being wrong.
Beyond these three horrible feelings, they induce shame.
Shame is a:
Sudden Heaping on of A Massive Embarrassment
Shame makes you feel:
– caught
– like a fraud
– as if people won’t look at you the same
– like you should keep your mouth shut
– no good
Do you experience shame? When you speak? When you act in the wrong way? When people catch you doing something? When you make a mistake?
The other day my daughter came home from church. She looked at me and said, “Mommy, when I do bad, and say sorry to God, I get to do this…”
She took one hand and wiped off her other arm as if she was wiping sand off her forearm. Then, she did the same with the other arm.
“I get to wipe it all off, Mommy, and it is gone.”
I considered her words and actions. I get to do the same, too.
I get to wipe off the moment I feel caught, the second I feel exposed, the time I feel burdened by what I did wrong, the moments where I hate the little things I do. Wipe…wipe…gone.
Why?
Because of Jesus. Because his love leaves no place for shame. Because He came to free me, not to bind me up to my own nervousness. What He delivered me from was my sin and the things that keep me insecure, so I can walk out and into this world with glorious light. He does the same for you, too.
It’s your self-hatred.
It’s your hand that wants to slap yourself sometimes.
It’s that memory that classifies you as horrible.
It’s the action that ruined who you are.
It’s the person and what they did that you can’t get past.
It’s what holds you captive to the flesh.
Shame moves as unending pain…
You get angry at yourself about it. You hate that part of you. If you could scalpel away the emotions, you might. But, you can’t, because you feel stuck; you’ve been branded as sinful, horrible or tainted.
I know – shame. Shame is this little beast that lives inside. What he does is summon up guilt, guilt so insurmountable it’s untamable. Then, that very guilt goes so wild; he rips apart holy.
He tells you…
“You can’t be a temple, when you were tempted and tainted in that way.”
“You can’t be God’s child, when you hurt another like that.”
“You can’t be in God’s light, when you found yourself so sullied in the dark.”
“You can’t win when you’ve already decided your inadequacies make you a loser.”
“You can’t be of worth, when everyone else has declared you – worth nothing.”
If Jesus is hero, shame is enemy #1.
This enemy captured me for a large portion of my life. I declared myself, silently, as an unworthy follower of Jesus because shame spouted off his propoganda – and I listened! I knew truth, but I couldn’t accept it. I knew who I was, and I figured, God knew too. We had a silent agreement – shh… I wasn’t good enough.
Are you living by a silent agreement?
Shame takes sons and daughters, ones declared pure as snow and tells them they’re as tarnished as sin. He says, “Wash as you may, but your disgust and disdain can never be washed off.”
How has he marked you irredeemable?
He marked me too. I finally realized something, however: I can’t walk free if I am walking chained. Seriously. It’s an either/or choice.
Either I will walk in the fullness of freedom or I will walk in the chains of shame. And, at risk of sounding too simplistic, because I know making your way to the other side can seem like a mountain-wide length of difference, in some ways it is a simple belief that frees us.
God says:
All things are possible. (Mt. 19:26)
Even more than what you believe possible – is possible. (Eph 3:20)
There is almost nothing more God wants to do than to free you. (Lu. 4:18)
So, what feels impossible to let go of, with God, is possible. What feels insurmountable to forgive yourself for, with God, is forgiven. What feels unspeakable and incarcerated in the jail-cell of “don’t talk about it” – is let go by God’s grace.
The Lord reaches his hand out to you. Will today be the day you grab it? For, he wants to lead you somewhere. He wants to bring you to more. He wants to set you free so you set others free. Open up and let Jesus sit down with you right now. Let him wrap you in the cover of forgiven and forgotten, and thrown as far as the East is from the West. He longs to bring warmth to the cold lies shame has told you for so very long.
Dear Lord Jesus, right now, I ask you to draw near to my friends who are suffering in shame. Perhaps they’ve been suffering for a long, long time. Perhaps, right now, they feel undone. Perhaps, they don’t know what to do. Put your arms around them. Pour out your love. May they see your face of compassion and redemption. May they know your heart to love them. I pray they hand over what is not theirs to carry any longer. May they know you carried it on the cross. It is finished, done and over. May they release it now into your great abyss of love. Amen.
Is there something in your life – you can’t forgive yourself for?
There is something, even today, I am still angry at myself for doing. I can’t tell you all the full story, although I wish I could. There are people, and places and things, that have to be protected. But, what you need to know is this: for a long time I’ve walked around with a pile of regret, loaded up with the bricks of fear that I can never rewrite the past.
I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. Eph. 1:17
Peace, Child. I call you blameless.
“And you also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation. When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession–to the praise of his glory.” Eph. 1:13-14
Peace, Child. I call you blameless.
Did you hear me? I. call. you. blameless. Col. 1:22
Not blamed a little bit when “that girl” stands taller, thinner and richer.
Nor blamed when you royally drop all the marbles of so-called great faith.
Nor blamed when your mind starts to dig deep tracks into despair.
Nor blamed when you can’t seem to be sinless enough to win my accolades.
Nor blamed when don’t have as good as a comeback as that other person.
Nor blamed when you look like a walking zombie of motherhood.
Nor blamed when your house is messier than a city demolished post-tornado.
Nor blamed when you feel lowly, last or marginalized.
Blameless. Child. Blameless.
For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. Eph. 1:4
Peace Child. I call you loved. Jo. 3:16
Not loved just when you’re performance is perfectly stepped and played.
But loved just as the unique creation I formed.
Your imperfections are what I call beauty. I know them and I love them.
Not like I love “her”–and for a good reason. She is not you, nor does she have your call.
I know how to love you, just as you need.
I know how to help you, just as my will prescribes.
I made you to be you, because I like you.
I made you to be you, because I have plans for you that no one else owns.
I made you to be you, because you know how to love the hurt that were hurt like you.
I made you as you, because there are people that need the most authentic being–of you.
I made you to be you, because I want you as mine. I enjoy you. I like you. I call you friend.
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I can’t believe I am saying this. With this admission, it seems like stadiums of people might stand up and boo me. It feels like there should be a grand coronation with a broken crown, for me, the mom who stinks the most. And here is why (and boy, do I hate to admit this): I hate playing with my kids.
There you have it.
Give me games, give me coloring, give me a purpose, but give me a room and a little one dreaming of pretend games – and I am lost.
I know, I hate me too; I see the other moms.
I am not like them: the ones who get on the floor for hours, aching back and all, the ones who are 110% in at the park and the ones who crafting all day long.
These women, they make me look bad; they point out the truth: I am not enough.
Are you hearing the voice of not enough too?
Not enough at work? Not enough with your family?
Not enough with your friends? Not enough of anything?
I could see “not enough” every time I looked into that innocent face. I could see it in his eyes – I was letting him down. Every look at him seemed to speak, Kelly:
You are a failure mom. Your kids won’t love you. You are not enough. You will always stink.
If we aren’t careful, our failure will attempt to define our future.
This thought made me sit upright at the prospect of something deeper a nugget: If our thoughts are trying to kill relationship, rather than build relationship, they probably are not from God. This truth hit me like a lightbulb.
Then, I started to think:
Evil wants to make our perceived failure into our destined future. It wants to hand us an eternal label that says, “Unstable and liable to fail.” It wants to rip apart our families with the lie, that things can’t change.
It is at work to tell us, “You stink and can’t ever be better.”
This message always leads us to do one of three things:
1. Give up because we know how worthless we are.
2. Get mad at others because we feel angry that they are making us be this way.
3. Overdo it by being too involved, controlling or overbearing.
That evening, I decided to take a step back from my truth, the truth I didn’t like to play. I looked at it for what it is: I don’t like pretend, I do like the zoo. I don’t like pretend, I do like cooking. I don’t like pretend, but I do do fun things.
The fact that I don’t like pretend does not equal the fact that my son doesn’t love me. LIE!
It does not equal the fact that I am bad mom. LIE!
It does not equal a standing of doomed mother. LIE!
Relieving myself of the pressure, left me room to consider. It left room for me to love myself and him without getting burned. Stepping back leaves room for God to starve the bad and to feed in the good.
Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. Jo. 15:13
Jesus laid down his life for me. I have a little one that I can lay my life down for too.
I can sometimes do what I don’t like, I can play pretend, because I love him. I love him so much. I love with big and bold and wide open love. And, with Christ, we can do things we don’t like, even if we fail, even if we end up eventually yelling, “Get in the car. We are making an emergency trip to the library.” Even then, we are okay.
The love of Christ leave us, always, more than okay; it can’t go anywhere on the children of God. It always sees, always cares and always endures.
Shame has no place in the center of love.
Shame can’t exist in the presence of patience.
Shame can’t grow amidst self-forgiveness.
And, so we look at ourselves and say, “If Christ can love me like this, I guess I can love me too.” For, how can we really love, if we don’t have a base of love to work from?
‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.” Mark 12:31
If I find his love in me, Christ’s love will work through me.
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She looked at the girl sitting next to me, and said, “Hey it is so great to see you” and continued on not even giving me the time of day.
Who does that?
Who completely ignores someone when they completely know someone?
Boiling hot, I was about ready to make a primed kettle sound. Wwwhhh….
Someone was going to get burned, and I had a feeling it was going to be me.
In an instant, my mind returned to a time of old,
me, the new girl, trying out for the team,
her, a potential friend that I really enjoyed being with,
all was good, until…
[walk in villian], her age-old best friend walked in… (dun. dun. dun.) and whispered to my potential laughing-mate, “Don’t be friends with her.”
Things went cold, I went hot. Wwhhh!!!
Discouraged. Dejected. Demotivated. I lost my athletic swagger. I was rejected from the team.
I felt rejected by everyone. Wwhhh!!!
Clearly, it was apparent that there was something deeper going on here.
I couldn’t help but think:
Boiling over happens because of past pain that lays under. Yesterday returns to sear us with the markings of – unwanted today. The devil is a avid scorcher, using his red trident of age-old shame – time and time again.
He hits us with it – and we almost can’t help it. We jump out of our seat, jump on the person and rip the person apart from the insides out. We say, you won’t mess with me or rule over me or hurt me ever again. Our eyes close, our fists move and our whole will is determined not to live on repeat. Except, when we open our eyes, the person we look at is not the girl on the field, but the thirty year old with two kids and a whole heaping lot of problems just like us.
Hmm…
I want to cut off this record on repeat that won’t stop playing, “I think I am dumb. I think that is why. People don’t love me. They will always pass by.”
This kind of song makes you live in limbo. It makes you live believing people have one foot in and one foot out. It makes you live expecting the next diss. It makes you live wondering when you will feel hurt again. It makes you wonder if God will be out the door on you too.
Wwhhh!!! It starts to rise in you. You feel like hitting again. Except when you open your eyes you realize who you would be hitting, and you remember – he was already hit.
Then they spit in his face and struck him with their fists. Mt. 26:67
You want to get angry, but as you start to soften your face, you remember: ‘The stone which the builders rejected, this became the chief cornerstone… Mk. 12:10
The stone that keeps the unsteady fabric of beings from falling over.
The stone that was never thrown.
The stone that binds eternal life.
The stone that knows the depth of rejection.
The stone that rose up to build a church that unites hands around the world today.
The stone with a clear purpose, despite the mocks, slanders and accusations of others.
The stone that was raised on high.
The stone that the Father adored.
The stone that seals us as always accepted.
The stone that pursues us and loves us and owns us always and forever and then forevermore.
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This was kind of a thing in my house. If something went missing into the great abyss and you were at that point (you know, the one where your ready to pull out every last hair), the accusations would start flying.
Suddenly, all people in the house became, not family members, but culprits. Bad guys, not common blood. Offenders, not friends – who should be charged, judged and accused. Suspicions would run high. Who misplaced that item?
Why is it so easy to point the finger?
To blame? To say something like, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”
I at because of him! It wasn’t me! You see that bite in the apple? Not may fault! Him! That one! Look over there. Blame him.
We hunt for relief from our shame, a shelter from the burden, a hope that we don’t have to carry its load. Can I offload on you?
God’s big lesson is less in Eve’s response and more in his question, “What is this you have done?” Gen. 3:13
He knew what she did, but wanted her to know too.
Hitting a hard realization, often pushes us away from immediate rationalizations.
Knowing he sees us, is knowing we can’t pull a fast one on the great one.
The beginning of recommission, often starts at admission.
In fact, just hearing his voice – and answering it – makes us immediately aware of where we stand – naked and hiding in a bush deathly afraid.
We push away our sin on to someone else because we don’t want it to land on us. It would wreck our good girl image, our seemingly great place and space in God’s garden, our joy in being free as a child of God, or so we think.
So, we scramble and pick up the gameboard of God’s players and try to scramble the board, we mess up progress in a way where no one knows who did what – hoping that chaos will realign the whole mat.
But, we forget who the master player is, don’t we? The one who stands it all the whole time. Just like a kid getting ready to cheat, our moves are made from the same place – we want to win in the end.
I do. I don’t want to disappoint him. I don’t want to let him down. I want to stay child – numero uno. I want to be in good graces. I want to still be loved.
And, that, right there, is the greatest lie of the devil isn’t it? That if we bite into the apple that we will never be loved again. He gets us on that one.
It’s our biggest fear, it’s what makes us rip off our clothes in shame, hide in a bush and beat our knees together out of a pulsating heart of fear.
But, here, we listen to the wrong voice. The other voice, the voice of God says, “You can’t do something that will ever make me stop being something, doing something or giving something for you.”
For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Ro. 8:38-39
When we stand on God’s ground, we stand on loved ground.
When we find Christ, we are branded as his.
When we find love, we can’t be thrusted outside of its confines, no matter how bad we act.
With these anchors as our holders, we can be okay with God’s instruction that “each one should carry their own load.” Gal. 6:5
We can carry our own load, because Christ carried his all the way to the point that complete forgiveness was poured out.
In the end, we will be okay. We will be pulled in tighter than a mom with a loved child. We will be held close as our mouths force out the words, “I am sorry.” We will find the lesson under the mat of the gameboard and it will bring us closer to God.
We will look at ourselves and see – we were wrong.
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I can’t stop remembering.
I want to, but I can’t.
Already processed words, feelings and hurts remain pressed up in me – concentrated.
Like cars at a landfill, I have squeezed in so much; these memories tower high.
Sure, I want to wave goodbye, but my mind holds on as if I am losing a long lost friend.
Sure, I want to finally turn my back on the, tears, embarrassment, shame and pain – but it seems I would negate or excuse all that happened.
So, I hold on, like one carrying a stinky diaper.
I hold on like one dealing with month-old trash.
I hold on like a 2-year old looking around at who may hit them next.
I keep my stink near, out of fear.
Why? Yes, I raise my hand, to acknowledge what I am about to tell you is a lie. But it lures me every time.
The Lie:
Tying myself up in yesterday,
will keep my heart from being tied up today.
So, I keep my antennae’s up and out; threats are analyzed.
My warning bells are working and tested; safety walls can fly up.
On-demand memories are readily available;
they are the boot camp to my feet, helping me to run as needed.
But, does my strategy even work? Because it seems I spend a lot of time in the landfill – walking over bad waste, smelly pieces and unloved emotions.
I can’t help but ask, does being around the stinky
somehow generate the sacred?
I don’t think so. So, why do I keep doing it?
My delay in demolishing only seems to work in demolishing my heart yet again.
That is what happens to wastelands of bad memories, they only hang out to make things more disgusting. I don’t want to allow flies to buzz, mold to grow and my heart to grow cold to others because of the garbage that I can’t seem to unload.
The reality is, when I take a hard and fast look:
Reserving these pains doesn’t revive my worth.
Remembering the frustration doesn’t relieve my agony.
Reliving these pinpricks doesn’t reject future hurts.
It just doesn’t. And, God knows it too.
Simply said, he tells us, “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past.” Is. 48:13
I love what comes next even more:
Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. The wild beasts will honor me, the jackals and the ostriches, for I give water in the wilderness, rivers in the desert, to give drink to my chosen people, the people whom I formed for myself. that they might declare my praise. Is. 48:19-21
Notice this: Here, God doesn’t care much about fixing an old thing;
he cares about doing a new thing!
He cares about:
Generating life out of now-dead things. Making the wild-ones obey and honor him. Giving water to the souls with holes. Providing for his chosen people.
When we see past the days of old,
we see the abundance of God.
When we keep our heart in today,
we suddenly step up above the fray.
God wants to give us the essential and the substantial
to fill us with his potential.
Notice the result? It is powerful. God in his wisdom protects our skittish mind from doing what it loves to do best. He prevents us from acting like a pig in a trough – returning to his old stink.
How?
He replaces our precautionary stance with a praised-filled one.
Suddenly our arms move from crossed to open.
Our eyes look from side-to-side, to straight up.
Our heart is laid down at his feet, just trying to inch closer to his goodness, rather than closed up in safety walls.
Our eyes are open to see goodness rather than pain. Restoration rather than hardship. Glory rather than trash.
And, it is beautiful, budding beautiful, sunrise beautiful, springtime beautiful. It captures our eyes with new hopes, new dreams and new what-ifs. It opens up a whole new world – a fresh, exciting and adventurous world.
I guess the choice is mine, it’s ours… We can choose to sit in the pain of yesterday
or we can choose to sit in the glory of today.
I know which one I am going to pursue.
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I am good at organizing my faith. It means I line up all the little pieces of my life in a straight line and expect them to fall like perfect dominos.
I expect my plans to fall into place. I expect that the dominos will hit the ground – and not me as I sin. I expect that my perfectly placed pieces will keep my faith in a straight line.
Perhaps, this is why I feel so devastated, so demolished and so pushed over when I do wrong. It is as if all my attempts to control my faith, my sin and my progress press on my shoulders, compacted and ruined.
It’s nearly back-breaking.
How can God’s ways be light when this work seems so hard?
Is this light-load wording really even truth?
Because if it is, I am living by a lie. Again and again, my faith falls and I do too.
But, what if? What if? I am looking at everything all wrong?
What if my inability to carry, isn’t so much because of him – but, because of me?
One with the weight of shame,
can’t really pass out the grace of Christ.
One whose hands cover her face,
can’t let God hold her hand.
One who laying down in despair,
can’t see up in hope.
One lining everything up,
can’t help but take everything personally when it all falls down.
And, in a heart-pumping way, I can’t help but think, maybe this line of thinking is real progress.
Because my way = the wrong way. God’s way = a chance to see his work at play.
God’s way is his Word and it restructures our approach:
Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to make you stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy. . . Jude 1:24
But you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God. Jude 1:20
The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!” Luke 17:5
And he said to the woman, Your faith has saved you; go in peace. Lu. 7:50
He makes us stand before his presence.
He grants us joy. He keeps us from stumbling. He holds us in the love of God as we pray in the Spirit. He increases our faith as we ask him. He makes our faith win when we rely on him.
We don’t need us, we just need him. We don’t need strategy, we just need prayers. We don’t need plans, we just need the Spirit. We don’t need holy roller practices, we just need help.
Every time, we need his help.
All the time, we need his help.
Every hour, we need his help.
Bottom line, as our heart cries out for faith by his Spirit, he will keep us and help us. He makes our load light as we lay our load on him.
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I should have done better.
Why did I do that?
I am such an idiot.
Ever spoken these words over yourself? I have.
I take all the things I have done and I judge them for my performance, my worth and my value.
As if these things are the summation of all that I am, can do and will be.
As if these things determine my day, my faith walk and my feelings.
I am hard, oh so hard on myself – hit-myself-with-a-2×4 hard sometimes.
But, is this even godly?
Is this even biblical?
The truth is:
1. He already handled them as he poured them all out over Jesus on the cross. (Is. 53:6)
2. He seizes them up and throws them out. (Jo. 1:29)
3. They are taken and covered by his holiness, grace and righteousness. (Ro. 4:7)
4. God moves my sin as far away as my hometown is from Chinatown. (Ps. 103:12)
5. They are lost, not to be found. Pardoned, for those he has saved. (Jer. 50:20)
6. Like a dead body thrown in the water, never to be seen again, God throws our old sins into the depth of the sea. (Mic. 7:19)
7. He remembers no word of them. (Heb. 10:17)
8. He blesses us in the process of removing our sin. (Ro. 4:8)
9. The guilt, the shame, the part that we feel responsible for – he nailed to that cross. (Col. 2:14)
10. He leaves us white, holy, renewed, revived, whole, complete, righteous, pardoned, sanctified and justified in him. (Ps. 51:17)
As the weight of sin moves out the weight of hope can move in.
A weight of hope that shows us:
We are holding the hand of the innocent lamb, until the day his kingdom comes.
There is a future, a plan and a glory awaiting us
because we belong the one to whom all our sin belonged.
There is nothing that can come against us,
because the deal is done, the war has been waged and the victory belongs to Jesus Christ.
The power of love is as attached to us as an arm-brand marking us as owned.
Jesus’ love is forever ours.
We have still-water peace always available through the power of knowing God,
not striving for him, but simply knowing.
Jesus died so we didn’t have to.
He sent the Spirit so we could live day-by-day with a new and living hope.
This power is alive and active – in us.
Do we rely on it?
Do we see it?
Or, do we operate by pounds and pounds, weight over weight of shame and guilt?
When we let the power of shame, guilt and discontentment take hold, the power of God is squelched. Yet, when we see God’s power for what it is – powerful – and his sin bashing skills for what they are – working, we live free to walk in the hope, love and grace that is Jesus.
I think I hear God calling me today, to let go of performance, praise and perfectionism. I pray, that with humble hearts, we all can let go of what we are not, to grab hold of all that Christ is (death that ends our death so that we can have life). The truth is that he rejoices over us and wants us to believe and activate the power he has already handed over.
“The LORD your God in your midst, the Mighty One, will save; He will rejoice over you with gladness, He will quiet you with His love, He will rejoice over you with singing.” Zeph. 3:17
My mouth says I want to “run with endurance the race that is set before (me)”, (Heb. 12:1), but my feet often go in the opposite direction.
I get set, and ready to go, until I fall and am ready to cry.
It’s a dichotomy I just can’t beat.
I snap back at my husbandwhen I know a kind word turns away wrath.
Prov. 15:1
I think bad thoughts towards a rude personwhen I need to forgive as I have been forgiven. Col. 3:13
I yell at my children, when God says to bear up under one another in love.
Eph 4:2
I judge a sister in Christwhen God tells me to first look at the log in my own eye.
Mt. 7:3
I take pride in my workwhen God tells me at the proper time I will be exalted.
1 Pet. 5:6
While my mind says, it’s all for you God, I am running hard and fast for you, my actions say, “it’s still kind of all about me.” I can’t let go. I can’t break through. I can’t succeed with God.”
The pounding of my feet on the sidewalk of God’s mission, start to turn into fists pounding on my heart, saying “Why can’t you just do better?”
Pound. You gotta get it together. Pound. People won’t see Christ in you. Pound. Are you really a Christ follower when you mess up so much? Pound. You are selfish.
And one who is beaten to the ground, can’t be running a good race for Jesus.
One who is pounding themselves, can’t be pounding the ground.
One fallen, can’t be encouraging others.
They can’t “Run in such a way as to get the prize.” (1 Cor. 9:24)
As I investigate my heart, my sin, and my desire, I am coming to see that God understands this roadblock too.
In order to run, run, run, we are instructed to unload, unload, unload: “let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance…” (Heb 12:1)
Why?
so that in the day of Christ I may be proud that I did not run in vain or labor in vain. (Phil 2:6)
Jesus understands the struggle of a heart striving towards him. He doesn’t come to point our our lagger tendencies. He tells us to unload and rise up. To let go, and to move our feet. To say I am sorry, and to speed into his love. To send the failure fits to the sidelines and to move forward in faithful fury.
I’ve noticed, as I can let that go, I no longer feel like a girl running in circles, I no longer feel like the big loser on Olympics day, but instead I start to move forward – in a straight line – gliding into forgiveness, forging into peace, wholeheartedly striding into hope and joyfully pumping into the cheering applause of my loving Savior who roots me on with all that he is.
So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. 1 Cor. 9:26
The question is not will I fall, because I will. The question, is – will I unload, confess and believe the promises of God (aka – get back up again), because this is where the race is won. This is where I stop pounding myself for every bad action and start pounding the streets with the message of Jesus Christ crucified and glorified.
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