Mid-January Grace

There’s something about mid-January…


Each New Year resolutions are penned to paper – January 1st, itself, feels like a fresh page & a new chapter. You’ve got great goals in mind to make for a fantastic story. You stare the possibility of perfection in the face & smile, cause this New Year feels like a new day! Your page is clear of smudges & regrets that can’t be rewritten or erased by your own means. Life looks good. You’re gonna let God guide you & truly live for Him, full force, this year. You want to please Him, cause He loves you so. Plans are set to let go of the old sinful stuff of the past…‘not again…not this year’…


And, then something happens – you give up or give in or listen to the lies - & mid-January you’ve already made a major blot on your clean page. Perfection is shattered & you feel ashamed & unlovable. How do I know? Cause I’m writing about me, that’s how.


Sin comes in & turns our snow white pages black; ragged-edged holes form when we try to get rid of the wrong we wrote ourselves, but can’t. As God’s girls we want that perfection, but it’s not possible – we’re gonna mess up. This isn’t to say we shouldn’t strive to become more & more like our perfect Jesus – just because as products of the Fall, we are going to fall, doesn’t mean we shouldn’t get back up & keep moving forward. We must strive. What we mustn’t do is listen to the devil’s deceitful tongue, when he whispers in our ears as we look over our freshly tainted pages with shameful pain: “God doesn’t love you. How could He love someone so dirty as you? … He can’t forgive you, you know. Your sins are too much & too many. Maybe once He could forgive you, but not this many times! … There is no way that God can use someone like you! What are you thinking? Look at your sins & then tell me that you think God has a special plan for you.” Those are his lies.


The truth is God came for those with messed up stories. And, the funny thing is, when He did, we found out we’re all the same & that no one’s life is unblemished concerning sin - we've all got smudges. He came because He loves us, wants to forgive us, & use us in His grand story. You see, it’s only through Him that our sin – no matter how black – can be made clean again & our page can finally be restored & healed, ready again for beautiful words to be written. We will make mistakes & feel the anguish of failure & the ugliness of sin (I know I have), but there is forgiveness, cleansing, mercy, & grace through the blood of Christ!  Don't let lies discount the fact that, if you are Christ's follower, you have been redeemed of all your sinful stains.    


The thing that makes our story so fantastic is that Jesus came to earth to die (cause He loves us unfathomably) for our sins – so that we could find – not the perfect life – but forgiveness & freedom… the power to take our ugliness & anguish to Jesus with a sorry & repentant heart & still have a happy ending… & that, dear girl, is where true life begins.


Love,
-Bess-

“…Wash me, & I will be whiter than snow.” –Psalm 51:7


“Create in me a pure heart, O God, & renew a steadfast spirit within me.” –Psalm 51:10


“He does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities…as far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us. As a father has compassion on His children, so the LORD has compassion on those who fear [revere & trust in] Him.” –Psalm 103:10,12-13