Victory in Jesus
I have a journal from a very dark time in my life that I keep buried in the depths of my storage room. The cover of this journal is so innocent, with its bright pink spine and happy floral design it looks like it would be full of heart doodles and optimistic poems. I even remember the day I bought it. I went to pick up a prescription at Rite Aid and there it was, far too pretty to be at a pharmacy, far too nice to be $8.99. So, I, being the journal addict I am, snagged it, completely unaware of the turmoil ahead.
You see, even though I “innocently” bought the journal, I was not innocent. I was absolutely drowning in sin. In fact, the mere act of buying the journal was sinful because I was hiding debt from my husband and that was just the tip of a very large, very deep iceberg. To anyone else there at Rite Aid that day, however, I was just another girl picking up her prescription with a cute journal in her hand.
The journal starts with my marriage falling apart. It starts with a desperate plea to God, to fix my marriage. As you turn each page you can feel the depression in my life getting thicker, you watch as I self medicate with sin, which only makes me more depressed and leads to more sin and I stay in this vicious circle until BOOM I suffer a mental breakdown. It’s a hard read even now; years and years later. You watch as I finally come undone and confess everything to David. I’ll never forget that day, sitting in our bed, watching his horrified expression as I finally purged myself of the sin I’d been collecting since I was a young girl. You watch our marriage struggle some more. You watch me make absolutely no sense as I wrestle with anxiety that is so irrational if I told you what it was about you would laugh (however there is no time). You watch me finally unburdened by sin call out to God, you watch God gently break me, you watch him put me back together, you watch David’s eyes change from horrified to grace filled, you watch me at counseling appointments untangling the trauma of my past, you watch me wrestle. It’s slow and excruciating at times, but as you turn each page I get a little better. My relationship with Christ gets stronger, I start making changes in my life, the depression slowly loses its grasp, the anxiety is thwarted by scripture, and my marriage becomes something I never knew it could be.
It’s a terrible journal, full of terrible things, but I keep it, buried in the depths of my storage room in a place where it is safe and won’t be damaged so that one day when my own daughters are ready I can share it with them, because even though, it’s terrible at times and it shines a light on the worst version of myself– it absolutely embodies the power of Christ in my own life. It is my live testimony. In many ways it is an altar built for God that reminds me who I was in myself and my sin and who I am in Christ now.
“For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” I want the words, “for all,” to sink in. In the midst of my sin I felt so alone. I felt like my sin was too big, that no one would understand, or I would be judged. The only place I felt I could go was to a journal that no one would read. The weight of what could happen kept me in bondage for a long time. The truth, however, was that even though there were some hard consequences and the road to healing was long, it was nothing compared to carrying sin alone. I promise you, pain with Jesus is much better than pain without him.
“The Steadfast love of the LORD never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness; ‘the LORD is my portion,’ says my soul, ‘therefore I will hope in Him.’” Lamentations 3:22-24
There is no sin too great for our God, there is no cycle he cannot break, no secret he doesn’t already know. It’s important, as christians, that we confess our sins and bear each other’s burdens. That is what the church is for, we are meant to do it together. So, my challenge is two fold, I could not overcome my sin alone, no matter how hard I tried. I really believed every time was the last and I could get a handle on it, but it wasn’t until I reached out for help that I was able to overcome the sin cycle I was trapped in. It wasn’t until I confessed that healing began. If you have sin in your life that you just can’t seem to overcome, I implore you to pray and confess your sins to God. He already knows, but that open dialogue is where it all begins. Then I would challenge you to ask him to reveal someone you could share it with, someone who can come alongside you and pray with you, hold you accountable, and show you mercy and love. The bible calls us in Galatians 6:2 to “Bear each other’s burdens” we were not meant to handle these things alone.
And for those of you not currently struggling with sin my challenge is this, when someone does come forward with sin, when they do confess, you remember “For all.” You remember that even though your sin may have looked different you were still once in bondage and it was Christ that set you free. Jesus is the only person who could ever justly withhold grace, and he didn’t. So how can we? If we all took on this attitude toward our fellow brothers and sisters, then maybe coming forward with sin would be a little easier.
This year marked the five year anniversary of that journal. I didn’t realize it until I was deep cleaning my house and came across it. I ended up sitting on the floor of the storage room reading the whole thing. It was like sitting in summer and looking back at winter. There were pieces of me that needed to die and though it was painful I wished I could jump back in time just to show that version of myself what God had in store. The fruit that he grew, the strength he provided, the people he brought into my life, the marriage I now have. I am NOT perfect, not even close, I still have my struggles, I still fall short, but that really hard season taught me to never lose hope. That season taught me that no matter how strong the grip of sin, God is stronger. It taught me that no matter how long and treacherous the road ahead, the reward is greater. And that freedom is for you, too.