In everyone, there is a fight. Around everyone there is a fight. When I look at things honestly, the fight within and without me is much my doing. I'm not saying that I'm a victim by any means. I know that the challenges I've faced in my life are partially because of wrong decisions on my part. I am not going to begin to blame my present on my past. We all have pasts, don't we? Some people are able to rise above it better and some rise in their eyes and fail in their heart. Guess that's been my way. Everyone has a decision to make in their life, are you going to fight or are you going to lay down and let whatever happens happen?
There have been a lot of changes in my life, personally, emotionally, spiritually, and physically in the last year and a half. Through a tragedy of stinking thinking on my part and the worst decisions I've ever made in my entire existence, I've never come out on the other side with a perspective as clear as I now have. There are so many uncertainties in my life, but the one certainty I DO know is one word...GRACE.
What is grace? I know that grace is the unmerited favor of God. Yeah, I know it. I live in it. I'm every thankful for it. Recently, I had been thinking about things in my life. Once again, I'm at a crossroads and I must make some very important decisions. I'm not good with change and I'm not patient either, so these decisions and steps I must make are heart-wrenching and just zap me emotionally. So I've been doing a lot of praying and searching for wisdom. In the middle of my soul-searching, I received an invitation to a Christian event from someone so far in my past I was blown away. I struggled with whether or not I should go, but I realized that the struggle meant that I should go...so I did. It was no mistake that I needed to be there.
I drove to this place that took me about an hour or more from my house. Not a problem, it just gave me some alone time that I needed. I got there, parked my car, found a seat and got ready for a Word. Nothing could have prepared me for that moment in time. Everything I had been praying for, all the issues I had been struggling with, all the earthly things that my heart was weighed down with and my mind bogged down in were all diminishing. I was given permission to let it all go and leave it to never return to it again. Everything I had every wished, everything I had ever pondered, all the "reasons" and all the words and stories and memories and all the crap were all shed that very night never to speak of them again. It was the most liberating moment of my life.
There are so many people out there that truly believe that we should pick apart and analyze who we are and why we would do the things we do, the reasons behind the reasons behind the reasons...God says drop it, leave it, and never return to it. Simple as that??? Really? Yep! For me, it was just that simple. So what do you do when you know it's time to let it go and let God be your reason from that point on? I had to obey. And what's funny about it is that the moment I decided to let God work in my life completely, "grave diggers" came to resurrect my past and throw it out into the day to eager ears salivating for a juicy story. People rolled around in my dead bones as alligators would roll in the water after getting their prey. It was as ugly as my transgressions. My accuser thought I would crumble and make the same mistakes, but my Word was clear and it gave me the strength to endure and overcome. GRACE...
Grace to stand. Grace to stay. Grace to keep my head up. Grace to accept the grace being given to me DESPITE the whirling winds of accusations, words, disgraces, and transgressions. I'm not perfect. I'm far from that. I'm forgiven. I've found favor. And though I'm undeserving, I walk in His love though I've lost the love of others. He is my Strength and my Deliverer, and yes, He loves me...oh how He loves me!
So here's my challenge...everyone has a past. Everyone has made mistakes, done wrong things, hurt others because of these things....why not give it to God and never take it back again? Don't ever go back, don't ever speak of it again and just move forward. He forgives as far as the East is from the West...they never intersect! I challenge you to step away from your past so that God can take you, change you, make you, and love and bless you. I made a vow to my spiritual mother. She held me in her arms, looked me square in the face and told me to never go back and I looked at her for the first time in 17 years and said, "never ever will I." I'm still walking in that Word today...I challenge you to do the same. I won't go back, can't go back to the way it used to be..."
