Embracing Forgiveness; Embracing Healing

I’ve never been the type of girl who really kept track of my weight, sometimes my pants were a bit looser than they probably should have been, and sometimes tighter. I just put them on and went on my merry way. Then times came when I lost weight; often I didn’t even notice it or pay attention until someone commented on it. It happened last night…”Are you loosing weight? Have you been running, walking, working out?” “Uh…no, not really.” And I think about how my pants fit or look in the mirror and don’t feel or see any change.

I think even when people intentionally loose weight it’s hard for them to see the change. We know it to be true of people with eating disorders. They may barely qualify as a skeleton but they look in the mirror and see themselves as fat. While others see only skin and bones, they just see fat.

I was talking with a friend recently about how we are often that way with healing and forgiveness. Christ has clothed us in garments of white, of righteousness; he has taken away our filthy rags, our heaviness, despair, and the ashes on our head and given us garments of praise, and a crown of beauty. God looks at us through Christ and sees us – forgiven and restored unto right relationship with him yet when we look in the mirror, we still see the rags we used to wear.

I was also thinking about it like this: I’m a girl who likes to always have a pen with me, normally in my purse. I know I have a pen; I always have a pen, except for those times lately when I didn't. In the same way, I think sometimes we are so used to carrying around our sin, shame, and pain that we are “sure its here somewhere”. We’ve always carried it with us and so we carry our bags like their heavy, even though Christ lifted our burden. He said, “My yoke is easy and my burden is light.” He wasn’t lying.

So, take a look around, look in the mirror just one more time. God doesn't see the filth; he sees a white garment. He has called you daughter; he has called you son. Check for the "pen in your purse". It's not there? It is as far as the east is from the west. It's on the depths of the ocean floor, and in case you can't read the sign, it says, "NO FISHING ALLOWED".

Our God is a good God; he knows how to give good gifts. And nothing, I'll say it again, nothing can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord: neither death nor life, present nor future, past, shame, doubt, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation.

(References: Isaiah 61:3, Matthew 7:10-12, Romans 8:38-49, and a short story by Corrie ten Boom)
(Also let the record show that I’m thankful that most of the people around me don't feel the need to comment during my times of upward weight flux. ☺)