sa
A letter from my heart to yours:
My grandfather, Elmer Newton, is one of my heroes. In the first half of his life he served himself and he failed God, his wife and his children. But before he died, God used him to help me understand that God gives mercy for our past and can do great things in our future. .
The last time I saw him he was 91, had suffered a stroke, and was confined to a wheel chair. As I prepared to say goodbye to him for what turned out to be the last time, I said, “I love you, Grandpa. If I don’t see you again here, I’ll see you in heaven!” He looked me in the eye, looked away, and said, “I’m not sure.” I said, “Grandpa, are you sitting here remembering the sins of your life, especially the first 50 years?” He whispered, “Yes.” I said, “Grandpa, have you asked the Lord to forgive you? Have you accepted Him as your savior?” He nodded his head and said, “Yes.” I then reminded him, “Then Grandpa, you are saved, not because of how good you are, but because of how good He is. He promised to save you and He will keep His word. Grandpa, if I don’t see you again down here, I’ll see you in heaven.”
What I’ve learned is that EVERY one has a story and that no one is either as good or as bad as his reputation. Please don’t look at my life and see only the good I’ve done or just the ways I failed. I know that sometime in the future I may have a stroke and be confined to a wheelchair. Like Grandpa, I may be remembering the ways I let you and the Lord down. Please come see me, and remind me that God will keep His word, will forgive my sin, and take me to heaven.
Whenever I am not going to see one of my family I hug them and whisper in their ear, “Number One- I love you”.
“Number Two – I don’t want to go to heaven without you”.
Bill
STARTING OVER IS A PROCESS OF BEING RESTORED
Over the years I’ve listened to many broken-hearted people. In their own eyes, and maybe even the eyes of those around them, they are “damaged goods” rather than the priceless treasures God intends them to be…and they need hope. Do you?
We can’t go back, but we can start over.
I remember a young girl in one of our first ministries named Lynn. God and her mother had made her beautiful, but her guilt made her ugly. I remember her inability to look anyone in the eye and how she struggled to share her thoughts. She explained how she had tried sex to gain approval and drugs to hide her pain. I remember how she eventually stood beside her best friend, Robbie, and asked Jesus to become her Savior. The youth and I dammed up a little creek, forming a small pond, and I baptized her into Christ. She began a lifelong process of restoration. Now, I don’t remember her for the life she led before, but for the lesson she taught me: You can’t go back, but because of Jesus Christ, you can start over!
Years later, I remember an anxious mother demanding over the phone, “Get over here. My daughter is pregnant, and I know her father will kill her!” I hurried to their home, arriving just before the father, and heard him ask where his daughter was. With head hung low, she walked out of the bedroom to face her dad. I saw him reach out to her, and, in his own way, he acted just like our Heavenly Father , I watched him reach out to help her start walking through the hurts and beginning the process of restoring her.
WHEN YOU LOOK BACK AND ONLY SEE REGRET
Have you ever taken a backward look at your life and started playing the “I-wish-I-could-go-back-and- start- over” game?
Looking back, there are so many regrets about my childhood, my teenage years. The things I did and didn’t do in the early years of my marriage. As a parent I wish I’d have listened more to my children, been more patient, complimented them more often, and made more time for them. I wish I wouldn’t have just prayed for them, but with them…and more often. I wish I had asked their opinions, corrected them in private, and been more loving and kind. If only I had kept my mouth shut when they were distressed and just been a shoulder for them to lean on. I wish I had been more “friend” and less “preacher” when they had a problem. I’ve often thought regretfully, “If only I had treated them like the treasures they are—with tenderness and compassion. If only I had been more forgiving.”
As a husband, I have often lamented, “I wish I had treated her better—told her how much I love her and how precious she is to me. I wish I had remembered to buy my wife flowers for no reason at all or had helped more with the home and children. I wish I had met her sexual needs before satisfying my own.” I should have been the first to seek an end to an argument. I should have found out what made her insecure in our relationship and worked hard to remove it. I wish I had shown her more affection in public. The list goes on and on, but I can’t go back and “fix it.”
IF YOU CAN’T GO BACK, HOW DO YOU START OVER?
One day a woman walked into my office and for more than an hour I listened with my whole heart. (Because I want to protect her privacy I’ve changed the story enough that it could fit many others that have shared their broken hearts with me.) She was an unwanted child. Her parents either could not or would not take care of her, and she was passed around to other family members who really didn’t want her. Eventually she became a part of the foster care system. She was sexually abused. As a teenager she was lonely and desperately wanted someone to love her; she became promiscuous. She got pregnant and had an abortion. This poor woman had experienced one broken relationship after another, and although now married, she had decided she just couldn’t trust anymore.
She lifted up her hands and showed me her wrists and said, “See the scars? I tried suicide twice. My life is so empty. No matter how much my husband or children or church try to show me love, I still feel so empty.” She sobbed, and the tears fell silently from her cheeks. I asked if I could pray with her. I prayed for her broken memories and her broken past, and I asked God to help her. I prayed that He would begin the process of restoration.
The reason I remember this story so well is that over the course of the next several minutes, my own life changed; the way I viewed broken people (myself included) changed.
Sometimes we run on empty.
I drew a bucket on a blank sheet of paper. “Sis, God intended your life to be like a bucket, full and running over with love, joy, and peace to pour on those He puts in your life.
- He intended to use people in our lives to fill us up.
- When they sin they damage the amount God can use them to fill up others.
- When we sin we cut our own bucket and we leak. We harm God’s ability to use us in other people’s lives.
I continued, “You need to know that not only are you hurt, but sin has hurt everyone else in your world. Because they are hurt, it may be they couldn’t meet your needs, rather than they wouldn’t meet your needs.”
I listened as she described how the “resource people” in her life had sins that crippled them. Very carefully, I helped her evaluate how these relationships had affected her life.
We then identified how her sin and the sin of those God intended to care for her had cut holes in her “bucket.” No wonder she felt empty. It was a difficult process, and she wept. Eventually, as she dried her eyes, I said, “Sis, the Lord wants you to be filled with love and joy so you can pour your love out on everyone in your world. He wants to help you. Are you ready to begin this process of restoration and forgiveness?” She was.
I began to draw a cut on her bucket for each hurt. “Your parents abandoned you, and you felt so lost and unwanted. The unkind words spoken to you over the years pierced your heart. You decided that even God must not care about you. Those who molested you robbed you of your innocence and violated your fragile trust. The man who raped you wounded you deeply. You ‘cut’ yourself when you gave sex in the hopes you’d be loved, when you had the abortion, and then again when you tried to kill yourself.”
The bucket I had drawn, now had many cuts. It was terribly damaged and leaked.
I asked, “Do you see your problem? First, your resources are damaged and haven’t given much to you. Second, your bucket has holes in it so you leak! No matter what goodness God pours into your bucket, or how often your husband or children say ‘I love you’,” it’s never enough. Even when you hear that God loves you, you leak, so those words of love and affirmation don’t last very long and you always feel so empty.”
I took her by the hand and asked her, “Are these scars from when you tried to take your own life?” She nodded. I slapped at her scarred wrists and asked, “Does that hurt?” “No,” she replied. “Why not?” I asked. She said “Because it’s healed!” I asked, “Sis, would you like the open wounds in your heart and memory to be healed just like that?” She replied, “Oh yes!” I explained that it is a process of restoration—a process of forgiveness and healing that is only possible through Christ.
Taking the pain to Christ.
I knew she worked in the medical field and so I said, “If someone is in a car wreck and they come to you all cut up, what do you do?” She said, “We clean and disinfect the wounds and stitch them up.” As she spoke, I began placing “stitches” across the cuts in her bucket. At that moment she exclaimed, “Bill, those look like little crosses!”
And sure enough, they did. “Sis, just like the cut on your wrist no longer hurts and all that is left is a scar, the Lord will cleanse and heal the hurts in your life so they are only memories, instead of open wounds. Take your hurts to Him and ask Him to help you forgive those who have hurt you (See the next chapter for more on forgiving others), and confess your sins because He will forgive you…and then YOU can forgive yourself!
As Christians we can take our own sins to the Lord, receive forgiveness, and begin again.
– 1 JOHN 1:9 “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
It’s almost like breathing. We breathe in oxygen, exhale, and breathe in another breath of fresh air.
ARE YOU DAMAGED GOODS?
As you look at your life, what damage has sin done in your life? Do you feel like damaged goods? You can’t go back and “fix it,” but because of Jesus Christ, you can start over.
There are times when the memories, the regrets, still come back to haunt me, and I find it impossible to ignore them. I then have to make a decision. I can hold onto them, trying not to remember my past failures and hurts or trying to convince myself to “feel” forgiven, or I can give them up to God. If I choose to dwell on each ugly chapter, I can feel the love, joy, and peace in my life drain out of me. I am learning to take my hurts and regrets to the Lord again and again. When I experience His forgiveness and claim His promises, I can forgive…even myself.
Still learning how to forgive myself,
PS: How’s your bucket?
Bill