The men of Dawson City Gospel Chapel had just finished a prayer breakfast and were about to start work on the new church building. They were all anxious to get at it because the date of the dedication had been set and they were behind schedule. The pastor had prayed that morning for a couple more carpenters to help with the work.
They were about to begin when there was a knock on the door. The pastor answered and listened patiently to the man’s story. He and his son had been trying to leave town, heading for Alaska on their vacation. But every time they tried to drive up the long hill out of town their vehicle broke down. “I was told there’s someone here who is a good mechanic,” he said. “Could I get him to have a look?” The pastor invited him in and explained his situation to the other men. Then he turned to the man and asked his name. “Bud Carpenter,” the man responded. “And this is my son, Josh Carpenter.”
He was a little puzzled when the men started to laugh, until the pastor told him what he had just prayed a few moments before answering the knock on the door. Bud then laughed with them and explained that he was taking his son to Alaska as a graduation gift and they really had no firm time schedule. “I’m pretty good with a hammer. We’d be happy to help for a few days.” They stayed for a week. The mechanic looked at their vehicle and found nothing wrong with it. The work was finished on time and the pair continued on their way after the dedication celebration. Their car had no trouble climbing that hill.
I was thinking about that story the other day and thinking about how we are all like those Carpenters in a way. All of us are busily going on our way, with our own agendas and plans. But sometimes God throws a bit of a detour into the plan. We can react to it in two ways. We can fight it and keep on trying to climb that hill, or we can stop and listen for His voice to see if perhaps there is another plan in place.
For instance, a friend told me a story about going on a mission trip to India. The plans had been well made, the itinerary laid out and everything seemed in place. But when they arrived no-one met them. My friend said it was interesting to see how the group members handled it. Those from North America were stressed and some were angry. They wanted to call some one and get it all straightened out so they could get back on schedule. But there were two fellows from Africa who counselled a different way. They suggested the group wait and pray. So they slept in the train station that night and prayed.
The next day a young man arrived on a motorcycle. “I’ve been sent to get you,” he said. But he was not from the mission and had no idea why he was sent to get them. After some debate they decided to go with him and ended up having a tremendous time of ministry and growth in his village. Nothing was structured. Each day was a routine of waking up and praying to see what God wanted them to do. And each day they were blessed. They never did connect with the original group they were supposed to work with but they all knew they had done what God intended.
“Many are the plans in a man’s heart, but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails.” Proverbs 19:21
When I told my mother that my husband was going to be a pastor she said, “Well, you’ll never be rich. She was right. But she was also wrong. When we sold the log house we’d built on the banks of the Klondike River near Dawson City Yukon, to attend Bible College in Saskatchewan, I thought, well, we’ll probably never own another home. And I thought our travelling days were over. God had other plans.
I love travelling. The ability to go off to foreign places has been one of God’s gifts to me over the years, in spite of our lack of finances and my lack of faith. My first adventure came during university when a friend urged me to put my name on the list for a trip to Spain being organized by the faculty of Geology. I balked at first. “Impossible. There’s no way,” I told her. It was almost the end of the year and I was almost broke. But when extra seats opened up and I was offered one, the pieces fell into place and off I went. Travelling around Spain, Portugal, France and Switzerland opened my eyes to the wonders of Europe and gave me a thirst for more.
Then I found myself in the Yukon and travel to anywhere was expensive. “But everyone has to have a honeymoon,” my new husband said, so off we went to California, arriving in San Francisco on Chinese New Year. Now that was a cross cultural experience!
Not long after, we made the leap of faith, landed in Bible College on the flat Canadian prairie and then moved one province to the west to begin ministry in our first church. I thought our travelling days were definitely over. But God had more in store for us.
After seven years it was time for a year-long sabbatical. “Papua New Guinea,” a missions expert advised us, “That will be a good place for you to go.” I wasn’t even sure where PNG was, and I wasn’t sure I could take the heat of a tropical climate, but God made the doors open and before I could voice all the ‘what ifs’ we were there. Life in the third world was both challenging and exhilarating as God opened our eyes to the need to trust Him every moment of the day. Coming home was harder than going, but slowly God worked on our hearts and minds and souls and we adjusted once again to life in Canada.
We received a call from the head of our church’s association one day. “How would you like to go to Israel?” Impossible! But he explained it was sponsored by the Israeli government and a tourism organization, which made the price too good to refuse. Walking the land of the Bible was a profound experience.
Then seven years later God moved us from our comfort zone, where we’d pastored for 20 years, to begin a new work in a small community. My husband’s salary dropped into the bottom of the barrel once more. And once again, I thought our travelling days were over.
But God had another plan. It included eighteen months of cancer treatments and a slow recovery. “Take your wife somewhere warm,” the doctor said. Impossible, I thought, but before I could list all the reasons why not, we were walking on the warm sands of the Caribbean.
A cruise was not something I had ever envisioned in my future but when my husband’s mother turned 90 she decided she wanted to celebrate with the whole family – on a cruise ship off the coast of Alaska. All 23 of us wandered around the ship wearing pink Tshirts that said, ‘Betty’s Birthday Bash.’ It was indeed! When she turned 92 there was one more trip on Betty’s bucket list – the long cruise to Hawaii, and she wanted me to go with her. I had to think about that for just a second or two.
Last year my oldest daughter turned 40. She decided she wanted to celebrate in Italy and convinced a friend to go with her. The friend had to back out at the last minute and when K said she was going alone, I voiced my objections. “Then come with me,” she said. Impossible, I thought. But I remembered my art history professor telling me to put seeing Michaelangelo’s David on the top of my bucket list. Apparently, God thought that was a good idea. The David was amazing. St. Peter’s Bassilica was a highlight as a booming voice chanted, “Laudate Dominum, Laudate Dominum, Laudate Dominum.” Praise God, Praise God, Praise God. Indeed!
Spain, Portugal, France, Switzerland, the Yukon, Alaska, Papua New Guinea, the Caribbean, Hawaii, Itady. Not bad for someone who thought she’d never leave the borders of her own province, let alone her country.
Yes, it’s been a joy to see it all, to experience so much. But even more, it’s been a blessing to see what God wanted to teach us through it all. There have been many lessons about trust, about His provision, about His generosity and exceptional love. With every adventure we learned more about Him.
“Surely you have granted (us) unending blessings and made (us) glad with the joy of your presence.” Psalm 21:6
“We and the world, my children, will always be at war. Retreat is impossible. Arm yourselves.” Leif Enger, Peace Like a River
I was born into a world at war. No one told me. No one around me seemed to know.
But it didn’t take long for me to understand that it was so, and I joined in with enthusiasm. At times it seemed as though it was all a game. I was at war with my brother, three years my senior, continually. It was a physical war that left bruises on us both. That made my grandmother cry. That bewildered me and made me feel an unwelcome thing – guilt.
I was at war with my sister too, though it was a much different kind. It was not the knock-down, fist in the gut kind of war with her. She, the first born, warred with steely looks and sighs that said I was merely a nuisance, barely worthy of a mention. But under the fake indifference was a seething anger, because she believed I was the cherished one. She, so much my elder, had to be responsible and take consequences while I “got off scot-free” too many times.
The only sibling I did not seem to be at war with was my other brother, the second born. He waged his war on other fields, a war of constant pressure to raise himself to an unattainable standard. I watched and listened and secretly cheered him on.
I was the brunt of another’s war, often, and to my great frustration. His name was Bruce and he lived two doors down on our street. He was the only son of a brutal man who beat him with a belt. Bruce raged against everything and everyone. I was an easy target, being much smaller, and a girl. My brothers didn’t provide any protection, the one being too weak, the other being too old to notice.
So I was left as a lone sentinel, without a weapon, to try and guard the fortress of my well-being. I was knocked down a lot, but occasionally I won, in a manner of speaking, by discovering that if I could draw attention to the damage Bruce caused me, he’d get a beating far worse than any I could give him. His father became my secret, fearsome ally.
I waged war in forts built of cardboard and rock. I waged war in gardens owned by neighbours and on the school grounds in games of chance and learned skill. I was only about seven or eight years old when I learned that the games could be deadly.
Her name was Stephanie. She was very blonde and very blue-eyed and my mother said that was the problem. “It seems to strike the little blonde, blue-eyed angels,” she said when she told me Stephanie was dying. That day I learned a new word in the vocabulary of the war – leukemia. I remember staring at Stephanie on a swing in the playground the day after I learned that children could die. She was laughing as she pumped higher and higher. I remember hearing rumours of her funeral later and ever since I have turned away from empty swings hanging still in a playground.
Three years later the deadly seriousness of the war struck again. My grandmother disappeared.
I knew she had been waging war for a long time. She argued with my mother daily, in bitter words that made no sense but felt like stones being pelted in my direction. I felt the hatred in her for my father and knew the bile she poured out on my brother came from that same place.
I knew she didn’t like most people, especially the “gypsies,” the dark-eyed children who came to ask if I could play. They weren’t gypsies, but Italians, but to my Grandmother, they were ‘other’ and therefore suspect. I remember a day when a boy I secretly liked came with his little sister and asked if they could use our bathroom. My grandmother’s nose wrinkled and her lips clamped tight and she closed the door without answering. I felt that unwelcome guilt again, and could not look into that boy’s dark eyes at school the next day.
But Grandma made good cookies and let me knead the margarine bag until the red button bled, and made peanut butter toast for breakfast, with tea she sipped first to make sure it wasn’t too hot. When I sneaked into her room late at night, she would get out a large tin box full of buttons and let me sew them together or let me leaf through magazines or watch her small television, until I fell asleep. She must have carried me into my own room each night, because I always woke up there.
And she told me stories, sometimes about the war and the bombs that fell in England, the place where she was born, and the way men are. “Like animals,” she said. “Gorillas. You can’t trust a gorilla.” She told me about working, at the age of eleven, as a maid in a big house near Buckingham Palace, how the liquor bottles were marked so the maids couldn’t drink from them and how they all would rush to the balconies and wave their dusters as the King and Queen rode out in their carriage. She said looking at the Queen’s daughter was like looking in a mirror and she always wondered why she was the maid and the other child a princess.
She disappeared in the fall, on a day that smelled of snow. They found her jacket then, but not her body, until the spring. She had jumped into the tail race that flooded the locks for the huge freighters that passed from Lake Huron into Lake Superior. I remembered she had talked about drowning, said it was a pleasant way to die. When the police came with her jacket, I listened from the stairs high above and knew that a battle had been lost. My father identified her body, but I heard him say it was hard to recognize her. She had been in the water for a long time. My mother didn’t cry until the day of the funeral. I was deemed too young to attend it. I wondered what they had done, what they had said, if they felt guilty about being relieved of her. As I did.
That’s when I armed myself with numbness. I learned a war could be silent, a necessity now that the source of conflict was gone from our home. Don’t do anything to cause it to come back again. Keep the peace at all costs, even if you have to lie. Those were the unwritten rules. I became very good at keeping them. Too good. I spoke little. I made friends only if it was to my benefit.
It was many years later when that curse was broken, and my personal war came to an end. Death had been all around me and at last I sought a way out, a way to know the depth of peace that can only come from one source. I at last acknowledged the shape of the hole in the core of my being that groaned to be filled. It was the shape of a man, a God-man whose name is Jesus.
When He came to me, He lifted my head and opened my eyes and the world became beautiful again, shimmering with an innocence I had thought long gone, long defiled. It beamed from the face of an infant. The world shone with colours I had not noticed, rang with songs I did not know I knew. Though the war still raged around me from every quarter, I now stood protected, armed with truth, able to recognize the lies hissing in my ears, able to rebuff them, able to smile and mean it, able to love with a genuine love that flowed through me but was not of my own instigating. And though the mystery of it all is too deep to understand, when I acknowledge my weakness, I am not beaten down, but comforted, because I believe there is One who fights the battles for me.
And He never loses.
My only sorrow now comes from knowing some I love have not yet recognized their need nor looked into His face and said, “yes.” But even in that sorrow I am not left alone.
Yes, the war rages. But now I am armed.
****
This piece was recently the first place winner in the Personal Essay category in InScribe’s Fall Contest
It’s been a busy season for me this year. Perhaps because I’ve been trucking around to many Christmas markets and events to showcase my children’s book, Merrigold’s Very Best Home. The pace has been hectic but I’ve found a silver lining, provided by God.
It was at a Christmas market in a local community that it happened for the first time. A group of local authors were invited to set up a table in the library, which was on the main street of the town. The Santa Claus Parade was happening that day so we were guaranteed lots of ‘traffic.’
I tend to be a little bit cynical when it comes to these markets. In the past, sales haven’t been all that great. But this year, I’ve discovered children’s books are quite popular. It was a delight to see mom’s and grandmother’s eyes light up when I described what my book was about. But the true delight that filled my heart and soul was witnessing the joy.
Everyone was smiling. Acts of random kindness were evident all day. When I discovered the library had provided a place for people to come and have a bowl of chili, with the bowls provided by the town’s pottery club and the chili provided by the restaurant across the street, the epiphany hit me. I was witnessing true community. The kind of community designed by God. It’s described in Acts 4:32. The believers gave to one another, cared for one another, and were “of one heart and soul.”
As I watched the people that day, I realized that this is the power of Christmas. It brings us together under the banner of praise for the birth of the Christ child who came to save. Even those who do not normally attend a church are drawn by the message blazing forth at this time of year. It’s the message the shepherds heard from angels who appeared to them on the night of Jesus’ birth – “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord” (Luke 2:10,11).
The prophet Isaiah proclaimed the same message 700 years before Jesus was born – “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace” (Isaiah 9:6).
Perhaps it would be a good idea to focus on this banner of praise under which we all can gather as we draw closer to Christmas day. Let’s look around and join the community of good works, the community of love and peace, the community of faith.
While watching a video recently and listening to this song I was struck by the image of that ancient tool of time, the hourglass. It made me sigh just a little, since I am not just “over the hill” but getting very close to the bottom of the far side.
And I have a friend who is dying. A friend who does not believe there is anything more than this life. He believes that when those last gains of sand fall into the receptacle on the bottom, that’s it. There will be no one there to turn the hourglass over so we can start again.
That belief saddens me deeply. Because I believe there is one who is waiting for us, a God who is monitoring the inexorable drip of the hourglass of our life, the one who will turn it over and open a new life to us, a life lived forever in His presence.
It makes me think of the place where I went to school, on the shores of a short strip of water called the St. Mary’s River. It joins two of the largest inland bodies of water in the world, Lake Huron and Lake Superior. The high school I attended stood on a hill overlooking that river and the locks that allowed huge ships to pass from one lake to the other. I remember staring out a window before classes began one morning and thinking about the courier du bois, those courageous explorers who paddled canoes from one lake to the other.
I wondered what they must have thought as they came to the end of Lake Huron. They had heard rumours that there was more beyond, (their first nations guides told them so), but I imagine they wondered. Could it really be true? Could there be another lake, larger and more wondrous than the one they had just navigated? I imagined their excitement and fear as they came to the end of the St. Mary’s River and saw that yes, it was true. Lake Superior lay before them.
Just as heaven will one day lay before those who have believed in Jesus, the Christ.
As someone who is getting closer and closer to that moment, I take great comfort in that promise. Unlike those explorers, I have no fear of what is beyond because Jesus has told me, “Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.” (John 14:1- 3, ESV).
It’s that last phrase that excites me but yes, makes me a little nervous, in a way. For how can I, one with so many faults and failings, come face to face with Jesus? But then there is another promise. “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.” (Romans 8:1,2, ESV).
Hallelujah! What a Saviour!
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Thank you for taking the time to read. I invite you to follow me if you’d like to read more of my work about finding your way home, into the arms of Jesus. 😊 You can find me on Medium.com at Pond’rings and Words on the Wing and a few other publications along the way.
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Easter Stories and More marks the eighteenth anthology in which my work has been published. It’s always such a joy to be part of a group effort, especially when you respect the work of the other authors in the collection. It’s always such an honour to be counted with them in a collection that you know will inspire and strengthen faith.
This one is especially dear to my heart because Easter is dear to my heart. What could be more exhilarating than celebrating the triumph of good over evil, the restoration of mankind to its God and, on a more personal level, the joy of resting in the assurance of one’s own salvation?
I thoroughly enjoyed writing the two monologues written in first person: The End of a Pilgrimage, which was written for Inscribe’s blog and Torn, written in response to the call for submissions for this anthology. Putting yourself in the place of a Biblical character brings the story of the life of Christ into a sharp perspective and causes you to dig deeper into the scriptures to discover more of the truths lying buried there.
The poem I submitted to Easter Stories and More, Easter Walk, was inspired by a stone I picked up as I was walking one spring day a few years ago. The stone was scored with two dark lines – one vertical, one horizontal. I wondered what had made the marks and as I walked my thumb traced the lines, my mind pondering again the mystery of the death and resurrection of our Lord and all that it meant to me.
It left me with a renewed sense of peace and thankfulness for His sacrifice and for the sacrifice His father made, in sending His only son to rescue such a ‘motley crew’ of humanity. It also left me rejoicing that Easter is my victory too, because He included me in it, called me into His family and secured my life with His death.
I hope you too are able to rejoice in that victory.
“O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” (1 Corinthians 15:55, NASB).
The far north is a place where things are pared down, taken to the lowest common denominators of life. Rock, water, sun, insects and wind. And of course, in the winter, snow and ice. It is a place where the word survival is never far from one’s thoughts.
It was a marvel to me how the tiny delicate flowers of Baffin Island could survive. There is very little soil there, yet they spring up and cling to solid rock. Vibrant dwarf fireweed, saxifrage, anemones and the ever-present Arctic cotton. As my friends and I walked across it, the tundra seemed to be in motion as the tiny ones swayed in the constant wind, lifting their heads toward a far-away sun. We stepped around them, our heads bent in homage, our camera shutters clicking.
As I moved across that barren landscape I couldn’t help but think of the barren landscape of cancer I had been wandering in. The similarities were stark. After the diagnosis, there wasn’t much to hang onto at times. The winds of fear and loss seemed always in my face and the sun seemed oh so far away. But as I thought about beginning the first round of chemotherapy, I stared at a bright yellow anemone and took heart. If this little one can survive in this, her desolate place, then so shall I in mine, I reasoned, by doing what she does season after season. Cling to the rock.
My Rock was more solid and everlasting than those slowly disintegrating across the tundra. My Rock spoke and comforted and held my hand. My Rock carried me when my knees buckled and cradled my head when I just needed to cry. My Rock hid me in its cleft and set my feet on a firm foundation.
And when I “lift up my eyes to the hills,” and ask, “Where does my help come from?” He answers – “My help comes from the Lord, Maker of heaven and earth. He will not let your foot slip, he who watches over you will not slumber … The Lord watches over you, the Lord is your shade at your right hand; the sun will not harm you by day nor the moon by night. The Lord will keep you from all harm, he will watch over your life; the Lord will watch over your coming and going both now and forevermore” (Psalm 121:1-8, NIV).
We had been in Israel for some time and I was getting a little tired of visiting all the cathedrals and churches our tour guide led us too, but on this particular day he stopped at the entrance of St. Anne’s Cathedral and turned to us.
“If you like to sing,” he said, “this is the place to do it. The acoustics in this church are remarkable.”
I stepped over the stone threshold of the building and immediately my eyes lifted to the vaulted ceiling. The architect and builders had done their work well. The dome above seemed to float, every beam and arch leading the eye up toward heaven.
Then I heard the singing and for a moment I thought I was there. The sound seemed to come from everywhere at once. I could not understand the words but I recognized the hymn. As our tour group crowded in behind me I stepped forward and saw that the source of the beautiful sound was a quartet – four Korean men standing in the centre of the sanctuary, directly below that magnificent dome.
Almost as though we had been directed by a choir master, we all began to sing. “When Christ shall come, with shout of acclamation, and take me home, what joy shall fill my heart. Then I shall bow, in humble adoration, and there proclaim: “My God, how great Thou art!”
We had just begun the chorus when another group, from South America stepped in and joined us, singing in Portuguese. Then another group, this time singing in Spanish. My heart and soul swelled as I envisioned that day when we will all stand before our Messiah.
To see His face; Oh, to see His face! To be in heaven in the presence of this kind of pure and powerful unity – the longing was overwhelming, and I began to weep.
As we quietly left that place, the scripture I had read that morning, Hebrews 12: 22 -29, sang in my mind – “But you have come to Mount Zion, the heavenly Jerusalem, the city of the living God. You have come to thousands upon thousands of angels in joyful assembly, the church of the firstborn, whose names are written in heaven. You have come to God, the Judge of all, to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.”
See to it that you do not refuse him who speaks. If they did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, how much less will we, if we turn away from him who warns us from heaven?
At that time his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised, “Once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens.” The words ‘once more’ indicate the removing of what can be shaken – that is, created things – so that what cannot be shaken may remain.
Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire.”
I grinned as the commercial advertisement began. I’d seen variations of it many times on TV. They always involve well-known celebrities, and the scenario is the same. I especially liked the one in which actor Robin Williams appears in the middle of a football huddle and tells the players to “get out there and make balloon animals” and “kill them with kindness.” Then someone hands him a Snickers™ chocolate bar. When he takes a bite he turns back into the real football coach. I also like the one in which Mr. Bean lands in trouble with a bunch of Ninja Warriors until he eats the chocolate bar and becomes one of them again. The tag line is always the same: ‘You’re not you when you’re hungry.’
The first time I saw one of these commercials I thought of a time during my first pregnancy. I hadn’t had much for breakfast one Sunday morning and by the time our church service was over, all I could think about was the fact that I needed to put something in my stomach. My husband and I went to a local restaurant and ordered quickly. Then he began talking about our finances. I tried in vain to follow the conversation, to no avail. Finally, I said, “I can’t wrap my brain around anything, especially our finances, until I’ve had something to eat!” There have been occasions since that time when my husband has jokingly said, “I think you need a Snickers™ bar.”
When you get right down to it, we are all hungry for the same things – love, acceptance, fulfillment. None of us will feel that we are able to live up to our true potential until we feel that those longings have been satisfied.
This has application in our spiritual lives as well. In one of his recent sermons my husband put it like this: “You can’t know yourself until you know Jesus.” It is only by getting to know Jesus that we begin to understand who we truly are as His dearly loved children. None of us can be our true selves until we are filled with the Spirit of Christ. Then and only then are we free to become our true selves, a being created in His image. Like the various characters in that TV commercial, it is by taking in, ‘eating’ His word that we grow in that understanding. Psalm 34:8 says, “Oh taste and see that the Lord is good; Blessed is the man who trusts in Him!”
Wandering around in a state of constant hunger is neither good for our physical nor spiritual selves. We need to be fed. We have been provided with a bountiful banquet of spiritual food that will sustain us. All we have to do is open a Bible and read.
My daughter’s eyes glistened with tears that were about to spill over. “I just feel like I’m never good enough for you!” She blurted.
My husband had just been chastising her for her messy room, but those words stung him to the heart. He gathered Katie in his arms and assured her that he still loved her, would always love her, no matter what. Then he helped her clean up her room.
Many of us feel that we aren’t good enough. The thought may come when we fail in some way, or when we see “friends” go off together, leaving us alone, or when we are passed over for a promotion at work or an award we felt we deserved. There are many circumstances in life that make our heads drop and our shoulders slump as our self esteem sinks to new depths. These feelings can lead to frustration, anger and even depression. The pressure to be perfect is self-defeating. You know you can’t do it. You know you never will. So what’s the point in even trying?
But, the good news is, as a famous theologian once said, God knows us best yet loves us most. He knows all our failings and weaknesses, all our bad motivations and self-serving decisions, yet He still, as my husband did with our daughter that day, wraps us in His arms and tells us he loves us, no matter what.
He can do that because, when we acknowledge Him as our Saviour and Lord we are able to receive His forgiveness. Then He wipes away all that is flawed and ugly in our lives. He took all of it away the day he was nailed to a cross in a faraway place called Palestine, over 2,000 years ago. In the moment we accept the forgiveness He offers us through that ultimate sacrifice, He clothes us in His righteousness. We become holy, not because of what we do, but because of what He has done. That’s why he was able to tell that thief on the cross beside Him that He would see Him in Paradise that day. The man was forgiven because of his faith in the One whose sacrifice tore the curtain in the temple and made the very ground tremble.
Once we grasp that concept, the self-deprecating feelings of never being good enough fade away. When we understand the depth of His love none of our failings can defeat us. When we know we are loved and accepted we are able to lift our heads and straighten our shoulders. We are good enough for God. Nothing else matters.
Jesus didn’t die for those who were already perfect and righteous. He died for the ungodly. He died for you and me.
“But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).
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