Suitcases

I was up all night. My conscience kept me awake like a blaring emergency siren throbbing between my ears. Like Jacob, I wrestled with God all night. (Genesis 32:24-32) And like any other wrestling match I’ve had with God—He won.

I don’t know why we struggle with God when we know He is bigger, stronger and most importantly HE’S RIGHT. I’m a sinner. I make mistakes. I fall flat on my face. The easiest thing to do is to just tell Him we were wrong and we’re sorry.

Sometimes we wrestle because we don’t want to admit we’re wrong, or we just aren’t sorry, or we don’t want to give up our sins. We struggle because He’s convicting our hearts and our first [sinful] reaction is to RUN away from Him. But the amazing thing is: there is no need to run. You see, God knows us. He knew us before we were even born. (Psalm 139) He knew what our strengths and weaknesses would be. He knew us then, He knows us now. He sees everything, and even knows our hearts and thoughts. There is no point in trying to hide our faults and sins. The best thing to do is to humbly come before our God and just say sorry.

Why is it so hard for us to understand that God loves us so deeply that He actually forgives us when we apologize? It’s because we as humans don’t treat each other with that same gift…so we have trouble understanding that God really does wipe the slate clean. He moves on. He doesn’t continually bring up the past. When He says “I forgive you” He means “It is finished.”

Sometimes I have nightmares about the past. I wake up sweating, crying, heart pounding, and my stomach acid churning and torturing me. It took me a long time to figure out the root of my problem. I thought I was being wrecked by all the memories or my broken marriage and all of the traumatic events that happened. After a lot of prayer and reflection, it came to me one night as I wrestled with God. I realized that in my nightmares I was replaying scenes that had actually happened and those scenes weren’t about what he did to me—I was haunted by the things I said, the things I did. It was easy to forgive him. I let it go and moved on. But I had not forgiven myself.

The hardest part of forgiveness (for me) isn’t the fact the God has forgiven me and is over it; the hardest part, is forgiving myself for the mistakes I’ve made. The hardest part is getting over it myself.

That night I got out of bed and went to the bathroom and stared at the girl in the mirror. She was frazzled, stressed, eyes heavy laden with lack of sleep, and cheeks stained by trenches dug from countless nights spent crying. I looked that girl in the eyes as more tears carved her tranches deeper. And I told her the sweetest words I have ever spoken to myself. “I forgive you.”

I looked in my own eyes, I saw my own pain and owned those jarring memories and mistakes. “I forgive you Amanda,” I repeated over and over again until I really felt my burden lift. “I forgive you, and I LOVE you!”

I know this might sound absurd, but it was a beautiful moment of release. I’m happy to say I have not had those nightmares since. You see, God is filled with such overwhelming love that He doesn’t have to think twice about forgiving us and releasing us from our sins. But we are broken. Every day we must take up our crosses and choose to be more like Christ. As we grow in our relationships with Christ we too will be filled with His love, and forgiveness will come more easily.

I have sinned and made more mistakes since then. I have wrestled with God and of course, He always wins and every time I am amazed by His forgiveness.

Are you struggling with forgiveness? I want to encourage you to let go of those burdens. Lift them up to God, admit your sins, ask for forgiveness, and let them go. “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” (1 John 1:19)

Be encouraged my friends, be encouraged my soul.

Here is a song called "Suitcases" by Dara Maclean. Please listen, and learn to drop that baggage that's weighing you down. :)