Sunday 27 December 2015

Letter to Self - regret, forgiveness and consequences

Dear Self,

Wish we knew then what we know now eh! - things would have been a lot easier to bear or to control but as it is, here we are you and me - just the two of us finally free of our dodgy past. We were never ever really good at owning our own mistakes. We were never one to admit we were wrong and ask for help. WHY were we like that? We will never know considering this amazing freedom that overwhelms us so much now.

It took me ages to compose this letter to myself which I should have written a long time ago but because of circumstances and pride I haven't and for that I am so sorry.

It was my prideful heart that ignored the fact that I really needed to sit down and compose this letter so here I go - please bear with me.

So where could I possibly start? Well I guess at the beginning may be a good place.

I hate living with regrets and I guess that is where we are at the moment - You and I have made a heap of mistakes over the years and along with the mistakes comes the consequences some of which can be lived with, others we find it difficult because of the huge residue they have left in our life.

You and I have lived with regrets most of our life and now, of all times, we have been convicted about all of them. We have come to a place where we can honestly say that we can hand our guilts, shame, memories and their accompanying consequences over to God and He has dealt with them.

Many people have denied God's very existence and we were one of them for such a long time, doing our own thing and living as we pleased. We played around with a lot of things and experimented with life and hurt so many people with our arrogance and pride.

We have hurt and been hurt by others. We have built resentment and carried a lot of baggage like a huge burden on our back for years and years. We have encouraged shameful memories of the past as well as carrying our vengeful acts against other people over some purported and warped sense of feeling that we are right and they are so so wrong.

You are I have committed some pretty dastardly deeds in our shallow past and try as we might we just couldn't rid them from our life. They stalked us mercilessly in their stubbornness of not letting us go.

It was in the stillness of night when our past deeds and shame used to love the best - remember how they came to us night after night flashing before like a never-ending slide show. We harboured them, listened to them and entertained their every thought and deed. Re-living every moment we seemed to absorb them into our very being until we began to live our life in a state of continual self-regret, unforgiveness and bearing the consequences.

We were certainly languishing in a life of malignancy for which there appeared no cure only more and more of the same - our very being seemed to crave more and more of the same hurts, regrets, vengeance, unforgiveness, pride and self-absorption.

Remember when we finally came to the point in our life where we felt we could no longer take this seemingly never-ending cycle of shame and regrets - there appeared like there was no possible answer. Our whole life was made up of 'steeling ourself for the battle" or 'looking after me".  We were number one, the first and the last and nothing or no-one would stop us achieving what we set out to do. You and I were ready for the battle, always prepared to confront anyone who we perceived stood in the way of our progress. Always ready with an argument to put us in a far better light that anyone who came across our path.

It was then that God spoke to us through an amazing set of circumstances and led us through a real time of baggage jettising that astounded us. We came to the realisation that God didn't want us to carry our heavy baggage throughout our life. He wanted us to be free. He wanted us to eradicate our guilt. He wanted us to come to Him to give Him our entire life.

Remember the feeling of the amazing relief that came to us that day when we fell to our knees in confession. That day when the Holy Spirit of the Living God came and took up residence in our life and made us a new creation in Him.

Sure we had consequences of our past that we still have to deal with. Remember how we had so many phone calls to people asking for their forgiveness for past wrongs? That was the very fist thing we had been convicted of. Making sure we were on a right-footing with others we had and have hurt. Part of the whole healing process was apologising and not seeking others to apologise to us.

Sure, there were some who wouldn't forgive even though we tried on numerous occasions and for them we are praying to our Heavenly Father, that they will come to see the amazing difference God can make on our earthly life.

The very Bible teaches us to confess our sins and have faith in the sacrifice of Jesus and His astounding resurrection. To trust Him completely in our life. Only then will we become children of God. If we do that we will be clean from our past no matter how dirty and dreadful it may be 1 John 1:12, Colossians 1: 15-22.

Sure there are still times in our life where we falter and even fall but the more closer we walk with God the less and less those times dictate to us how we should live our life.

So Self, thank you for listening to me and I praise God that you and I have become new Creations in Him and that the God's Holy Spirit has taken up residence in our life.

Philippians 3: 13-14 says "Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, we press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called us in Christ Jesus.

We don't have to live with regrets and unforgiveness. Let's put our hand in the hand of God and press on to the goal that He has before us




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