The past month of my life has completely changed me. Today, however, I realized that this was not the time or place for me to share my story or my testimony of my life. What I want to share is something much deeper than that. Today is about living in redemption.
Redemption:an act of redeeming or atoning for a fault or mistake, or the state of being redeemed; deliverance,rescue; atonement for guilt; repurchase, as of something sold, paying off.
Have you ever been so far into your head that you have completely lost sight of whose you are? That's where I was just 18 short days ago. I had woken up to get ready to go to a church that I didn't want to go to, to go through the motions of what I was "supposed" to do, and completely disregard the complete brokenness that was inside me. I had gone to bed completely convinced that the wrong that I was living in was justified, what I wanted and even what I needed.
I walked into the basement of a church wanting the day to be over as quickly as possible. I can honestly say I walked in completely out of God's will for me. I will be more than willing to discuss this with people one on one but this is not the place for my story. This is the place for how God's story changed me.
I've been through a lot in the last year. Moving back in with my parents, having to completely restart making friends, not having a job, being diagnosed with depression, losing my grandfather. And those are just the highlights.
Somewhere along the way I had forgotten that God was the one in control of my life and had let the world get into me. I didn't sense His spirit so I blamed the people around me for it. Well the reason I'm not feeling Him is because (insert name here) isn't doing what they're supposed to be doing. For the record, God was the one that never left, I was the one that was walking in the opposite direction.
There's this still small voice that God uses most of the time to lead us in the right direction. Sometime it takes being completely and totally at your lowest before you are actually quiet enough to listen. And on January 31, I finally stopped talking and listened.
All of a sudden all the mistakes, all of the running away from Him hit me in the face. I felt conviction but I also felt this extreme outpouring of love like I have only felt once before, on the day when I first called Him mine.I was surrounded by people that cared about me and I just knew that I couldn't run from His love anymore.
His love is so much more than I deserve and He freely gives it. Without realizing it, He had used me as a witness to a new friend Lesli copy and paste the link below in your browser to see her story.
https://passionateblogger23.wordpress.com/2016/02/13/my-testimony/
As I walked into the church building that day, I did not expect the outcome that came. I was told by over 100 people that day that they were praying for me. I shared about how God cast our sin as far as the east is from the west and we needed to live in that forgiveness. Someone told me thank you for saying that because I needed to hear that. Even then God started using my story started reaching people.
Since that day a lot in my life has changed. I have realized that living in Christ is so much more than doing the "right" things with the "right" people. The whole point of my relationship with God is to be completely and totally in love with the greatest love I could ever have. Somewhere along the way I had forgotten that. I had gotten to the point where God wasn't enough. I had lost sight of my first love so to speak. His love is so much. It covers everything. I displeases any doubt you could have. It changes everything about you.
My entire life is changing. I love myself more than I can honestly say I ever have. I am rewriting my relationship with food, which if you know me is a full time job in and of itself, and can happily say I have in a healthy way lost 8 pounds. I am seeing myself as He made me to be and that is a beautiful.
Letting go has always been a hard thing for me. I have made mistakes in the past that have literally crippled me in every aspect of my life for years. Living in redemption is about accepting the forgiveness that God has given you. But it is so much more than that. Living in regret or grief of something that has happened in the past is giving Satan a foothold to have a place in your life and I am not here on this earth for that.
I was made in the image of the One who created everything and everyone. Living in the past negates what Jesus did for me on the cross. He died for me to be made new. To live anyway other than that destroys what He created me to be.
The past year will always be a part of my life. I know that. But I also know that if what I have done in the past creep into how I live now, I haven't really made a difference.
One of my favorite hymns has a verse that has kept popping into my head over the past few months.
When Satan tempts me to
And tells me of the guilt within,
Upward I look and see Him there
Who made an end of all my sin.
Because the sinless Savior died
My sinful soul is counted free.
For God the just is satisfiedTo look on Him and pardon me.
I've been pardoned. My sin has been payed for in full. My life is made to glorify God. Live in the fullness of God. In Matthew 5, the Bible says, "Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect."
What if we started living in the way that we were created to be. In the image of a perfect creator as He intended for us to be. Redeemed, Restored and Resurrected in Him.
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