Lovely Not Ugly

I've been reading an amazing book, Finding Peace for Your Heart by Stormie O'Martian. Stormie points out how critical it is to our emotional health to confess and repent of sin.

Because I know that when we receive salvation all our sins (past, present and future) have been forgiven, I don't spend a lot of time on the confessing part. I toss up my share of, "Sorry, Lord, there I go agains," but don't really focus on the confessing of it. Sometimes I even skate around my sinfulness because of the shame I feel for my behavior.

Then Stormie shared (and I agree) that though we are forgiven and our citizenship in heaven is certain and secure, unconfessed sin becomes a weight we drag around.

A little further along, she said that when we are victimized by others, our response to it can be sinful and needs to be confessed. I was still nodding until my gaze skidded to a stop on the sin of criticism.

I felt my defensive heels dig in. But Lord, I'm not trying to be critical, it's just when they . . . and I saw myself trying to justify why I had a right to criticize and judge.

Oh, yes, my rights. I wear them like armor. You see, on some level (yeah, that would be the fleshly one) I believe I have a right to be critical if I have been wronged by them (all those thems out there that spoke rudely to me, that cut me off in traffic, even the short ones who talked back to me after I told them to put their breakfast bowls in the dishwasher instead of the sink).

Stormie made it abundantly clear—quoting Bible verses no less—that I have no rights when it comes to this.

So I reluctantly started confessing and repenting. She hammered that one home too. No point in confessing (apologizing) if we have no intention of repenting (turning away from the sin and behavior).

So after pondering all this, I wandered to the kitchen to make myself a cup of late night cocoa (I was craving and it was the only chocolate in the house). I told the Lord that I realize I often avoid him because I don't want him to see the criticalness and judgment I have in me.

He pretty much said that was silly since he already knew it was there. So feeling like a kid digging her toes in the dirt, I asked, "So what do you think of me when I'm like that?"

I truly felt like he said, "I think you're lovely."

I blurted out. "But I'm so ugly in my sin." And I heard. "Don't call ugly what I call lovely."

He reminded me that all my sin has been paid for and his anger satisfied when Jesus took it upon himself, so what is left, is my loveliness.

Isn't that amazing? And it is for each one of us.