I am not who I was, Praise God

After our first day at the HOLD Conference, I had a wonderfully unexpected heart-to-heart with a beloved sister who was also serving at the conference. We were both exhausted, but I remember lying there in bed, with our eyes unable to remain open, talking and listening, sharing our struggles and blessings.

When I asked her how she was, she told me that she was joyful. So joyful, in fact, that she was no longer able to remember any other past before it. In the dim light, I remember mirroring her joy and telling her I knew exactly how she felt. Then she told me that she felt guilty for being so joyful… she started losing touch of her previous life and the sin(s) that came with it. She continued and said that she wanted to remember the things she had done because in some way, she didn’t deserve to forget. I can recall exactly how I felt at that very moment. I felt this warmth spread and I couldn’t contain my happiness as I turned around in bed and looked at her from across the room and smiled. “He loves you enough that He let you forget.”

In homage to the wrongs we have done, we try and remember our sins… We hold on to them, thinking that by remembering, we are somehow holding ourselves accountable for the wrongdoings we have committed.

We have a forgiving and loving God. If joy has been planted into our hearts, we should let that joy continue to spread so that it can overflow. The person you have chosen to be is what matters. Take all those sins from your former self and nail them to the cross, for who are we to continue to house them within ourselves when our Father has already set us free? We can use our stories as testimonies…  We can acknowledge our wrongdoings: “This is who I was. But this is who He has allowed me to become. You will not always experience what you are experiencing if only You let Him in.”

Let us proclaim the love of a Father, who will never withhold this love from His children, as unworthy as we may be.