Psalm 25:7 "Remember not the sins of my youth, not my transgressions: according to thy mercy remember thou me for thy goodness sake, O Lord." KJV
Psalm 25:7 "Do not remember the sins of my youth and my rebellious ways; according to your love remember me, for you, LORD, are good." NIV
When one writes a blog, a book, an autobiography of any kind, you have to decide just how personal you would like to get. You want to share your life and it's intimate details so that other's can share God's blessings by learning with you. But you must respect other people such as your parents and your children so that their lives are not adversely affected by your writing. There are stages of your life that are important to share, however, and it's a balancing act that is delicate at times.
My life has been full of mistakes. Some of those mistakes hurt people that I love dearly. A few of those mistakes hurt my children which has taken me years to recover from. I mean, it's nothing major like prison or drug addiction or front page news events. Just really, really dumb choices that caused a lot of years to be wasted. I have tried, sometimes successfully and sometimes with little results, to make up for the bad choices I made. Some people have forgiven me and some have not. My children, thankfully, have always been willing to love me through the dumb times.
Each of us, for whatever reason, can't possibly make it through this life without making some dumb choices. Some of them are major league dumb and some of them are just minor blips on the printout of our lives. I crawled around in the wasteland of guilt for many years. Even when people were willing to forgive me, I wasn't willing to forgive myself. Until you believe, with all your heart, that you are a child of God, that Christ is your elder brother who came down to settle your debt with His Father, that no one person will ever be held above another when standing before God, you can't find that peace you are looking for. That God shaped hole in your heart will echo with your failures each time you close your eyes and stop running.
Put Psalm 25:7 into your soul and lift the words up to your Father morning, noon, and night. Use it as your lifeline when you don't know the answers to the questions and you feel like the whole world is against you. Realizing that your Father in Heaven has forgiven you the day you took His name into your heart is the first step on the path to forgiving yourself. After you forgive yourself and change your life to reflect God's love and live every day in the shadow of His Grace and Mercy, realizing that no one on this earth or out of it has the power to take that forgiveness away, you will move forward into a world unlike anything you have ever imagined. Your life is not about your past. It's about your today, your tomorrow, your eternity. God is a forgiving God. A Father who will put His arms around you and hold you when no one else will. I rest every night in the sure knowledge that my sleep will be sweet and my fears will be conquered. I pray that you will find that peace and that forgiveness. Your God, My God, Our God is such an awesome God.
Today on the journey of life, I found myself standing on the line between heaven and hell, staring into the foggy abyss. I set my pack down to take a rest and ponder my next move. The fog was inviting. It offered an unknown clarity to be revealed only once it lifted. It promised to lighten my load forever. I picked up my pack, noting that my burden was much heavier than I remembered. I began to run along the fine line, looking into the fog waiting for clarity. A calming peace came over me as I ran, assuring me that there was no clarity in the fog and that my new journey was to turn into the light. I would be given much strength so though my burden never lightens, my ability to carry it grows and grows. So here I stand, listening to the wave’s crash in the emptiness of the fog. I turned, ensuring the fog was directly at my back, and walked with my heart open and my head high into the glow of the everlasting power, my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Thank you Lord for all your precious gifts. I will attempt show that I was deserving of your favor.
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