My 40 day challenge was to do the following three things: 1. Do not engage protective strategies to keep my heart safe. 2. Trust God’s goodness & his desire to provide me with every need. 3. Forgive. All the people. The idea of not engaging in my protective strategies literally brought me to tears. I may have a teensy issue with this happening in every. single. relationship in my life. Number 2. Trust in God’s goodness & his desire to provide me with my every need? I love Jesus. But that doesn’t make me perfect or mean I have everything in life all tidy on a shelf. Finally, 3 -I would love to say this was an easy one. My pride wants me to say I have no problems forgiving others. Often, that is entirely true. The unforgiveness I had was towards the people in my life that did not hold up their end of the relationships, causing most of the other items on that list way up above. There are some seriously deep wounds from some seriously important people. When I got to day 32, I felt different! The difference was this: I found joy. Earlier that week when I met with Josie, she said “maybe your forgiveness issue lies within yourself. Maybe it’s not all about others.” Uhmmm…yuck. Who asked for that? She sent me home to create a list of all the things I needed to forgive myself for. The funny thing was, one morning after I finished my list, I was praying & heard the words, “Grace upon Grace.” Ok. Grace upon grace. “For out of His fullness [the superabundance of His grace and truth] we have all received grace upon grace [spiritual blessing upon spiritual blessing, favor upon favor, and gift heaped upon gift]” (John 1:16, AMP). Grace means the free & unmerited favor of God. Once I was able to grant myself just a little grace for being human, normal, flawed, I began to feel free & found I was not such a train wreck. I’m just a silly, little Jesus freak trying to make her way in a world filled with people just like me.
