I’ve never served time in jail. But I have spent too much time, off and on, in an internal prison of self-condemnation after personal failures. Since childhood, a pattern of condemnation assaulted my mind with lies. These lies were aimed at convicting me of being too flawed to have any hope of self-improvement.
But God broke through and told me that my paralyzing inner prison was not the end of my story. Christ offers me redemption by teaching me new life skills through the learning of life lessons. Jesus met me at my most painful times of paralyzing condemnation, and set me free with His healing love.
God’s healing love is often found in people who have gone through the healing process themselves. This love gives me the room to fail and then turn to God on my own, for resolution. People who are conduits of God’s healing love are those who have let go of their opportunity to judge me at my point of failure, have chosen to forgive, and leave me in God’s care.
I have experienced God’s healing love with friends who believe in the best possible future for me. They have caught a vision of me as my best self and they trust God to bring it to pass in my life.
This healing love has freed me to pursue my learning experience with God, to learn more of the lesson He is actively teaching me. God’s healing love, combined with my friend’s forgiveness and acceptance in brotherly love, has helped me rise again from the figurative death of my failures, to live again in God’s redemptive love.
In a recent time of solitude, I heard God communicate I had starved myself of His Love. I had neglected to receive the life-sustaining nourishment of His love. This opened a galaxy of thought in my mind. How could this be? But it was true. My early life experience taught me love was something I had to earn, and it was issued sparingly. The concept of being given unconditional love is not something I can comprehend. And I’m aware I live with this contradiction - I can gladly give my deeply-felt love to others, but receiving it still shocks me. It comes from wrong information I learned from my youth--lies that would tell me I was defective and not qualified for continued acceptance and inclusion in the lives of people, even those I considered friends.
Throughout my adult life, I lived with a rigid pattern of self-condemnation and deprivation of self-love. Subconsciously, I put myself in a kind of adult time-out because I had failed. And I didn’t allow myself to move on and try again, but instead, I stayed stuck. I finally recognized the self-condemnation, which I hated, but thought I deserved. Forgiveness from others and myself, breaks this pattern. I have lived outside of my self-imposed prison long enough, so that the freedom of self-forgiveness is my new normal. I recently noticed significant evidence of God’s healing love in my life.
My neighbor Cathy recently bought a dog which surprised many of us in our condo complex. Such a big commitment of time, effort, and money for a single person who works full-time. But we all cooed and smiled when she brought her beautiful Labrador Retriever puppy home and took him for walks.
One day she walked up to me in the parking lot and started to tell me about the hardships of her puppy chewing her shoes and urinating on the carpet. I was late for an appointment and didn’t have time to talk. I should have told her this kindly and gently, but instead I exercised what I thought was merciful self-restraint. I stopped myself from bluntly telling her she should not complain about her choice, and limited myself to one sentence, saying “Well, that’s what puppies do.”
Unfortunately, Cathy did not catch my hint that I was not able to talk with her then, and she continued her complaints. I awkwardly repeated my response, “That’s what puppies do.” Then I saw the hurt in her eyes. This caused me pain also when I realized she received my comment as rejection, and I know that feeling too well. I tried to apologize and asked if we could talk later, but she quickly turned away and walked across the parking lot to her condo.
A few days later, I saw her in the parking lot, and called out to her. No response. I called her name again, still no response. I walked up to her and by now her back was turned to me. So, I tried to walk around to face her and started to apologize, when she quickly spun to face me fully, and shouted, “No! You do not get to talk to me now, maybe later.” And I replied, “But I want to apologize!” “She repeated, “Not now!”
Thankfully, I’ve learned to get past my own hurt feelings and walk away from another people’s sudden loss of temper. I walked home and sat on my couch with the very familiar tear-filled eyes and tight stomach that I experienced after receiving a burst of rage during childhood. But this time I didn’t second guess my choice of action. My apology was the right thing to do. And I let go of needing her to forgive me instantly. I repented to God and received His forgiveness and peace.
A couple of weeks later I saw Cathy on the sidewalk in our complex, walking her dog. I was driving home and was in the driveway almost at my home, when a holy spirit idea dropped into my mind. I responded by pulling my car over to face her, rolled down my window and said “Hi, when you feel ready, let’s talk through what happened.” But I didn’t get a chance to continue. Cathy said “No, I want to apologize to you! She explained “I received feedback from several other people telling me I was not prepared to raise a puppy by myself. Your comment put me over the edge and I lost my temper. Will you forgive me?
I stood there with a slightly dropped jaw and then quickly recomposed myself, and uttered a brief “Oh, okay! Yes I do! And I ask you to forgive me!” She did, and then we then talked it out, while her 6-month-old puppy chewed on his leash.
What a sense of relief I felt at that moment, which I didn’t get to experience much in my past. But those stifled experiences from childhood have value, in that they serve to motivate me to not let the sun go down on my anger. Now that I have tasted freedom from wrath, I am no longer willing to spend time in someone’s anger jail.
God’s healing love gives me a greater sense of personal freedom, step by step. In addition to taking time in my day to quiet my mind and enter into God’s presence, I also set aside time to ask God for His wonderful, healing love which changes me from glory to glory. And I am so very thankful for my friends and prayer partners who share God’s love with me through forgiveness and acceptance.
My current, self-written, motto for this spiritual season in my life is “Take time to Nourish yourself with love, mercy, and peace from Christ. You are deeply loved by Jesus, our Heavenly Father, and the Holy Spirit. And everything is going to work out in your life, according to God’s loving plan. It is well with my soul.”
1 Corinthians 13:6-7 MSG
“Love never gives up,...Trusts God always, Always looks for the best, Never looks back, But keeps going to the end.”
About the Author
Sara has attended CitySalt Church since 2004, the year it was founded. She studied Journalism, wrote for her college newspaper, and is a member of Oregon Christian Writers. Sara also enjoys singing hymns with friends: “there is a sermon in every hymn waiting to be discovered and enjoyed.”
