Snow White

I write this post feeling absolutely overwhelmed by God’s love and grace.  I am broken before the cross of Christ reflecting on the sacrifice that was made for ME!  I know this should be an ever-apparent thought in my daily life, but quite honestly it’s not.  I so easily forget.  I distract myself with everything else.  I’m in the middle of this book study that has grown and stretched me like crazy.  The book is called “What Women Fear” by Angie Smith.  So each week on the (in)courage website two chapters are discussed via video.  The chapter that was reviewed today is called “The First Stone: Fear Of My Past Catching Up To Me.”  The story from the Bible that Angie illustrated this with is the story of the adulterous woman being brought before Jesus by the Pharisees.  The Pharisees were reciting the law saying that anyone caught in adultery should be stoned.  They waited for Jesus’ response, hoping to have a charge to bring against him.  They wanted to find blame in the One who was completely blameless.  Jesus responds by bending down to write something on the ground he was standing on.  He then stands up and tells the Pharisees, "Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her."  Jesus again bent down to write something on the ground, and as he did that the accusers walked away one by one.  Now, I’m not going to go into anything specifically about my past…I have one…so does everyone else.  If I’m being real, I really do have a fear that my past will catch up to me.  Yeah, I don’t show it in a noticeable way, or I don’t try to scramble around covering up my past, but I do let it get the best of my thought life sometimes.  What if what I did back then shows its ugly head in my life today?  What if a punishment is waiting for me around the corner?  Just like the adulterous woman, I’m waiting for someone to throw the first stone.  A line in the chapter that struck my heart was: “I am convinced that the enemy preys on our memories and regrets, and taunts us with the many ways in which we have failed God.”  So true!  Guess what though?!?!  The beauty of the cross of Christ covers me in forgiveness and grace!  I have most definitely asked God to forgive me for those times in my life, so I have to choose to believe and take God at his word when He says that my sins are as far away from being held against me as the east is from the west.  I am forgiven.  I am clean.  Angie describes Jesus in this way (which I looooove her wording!): “[Jesus is] The shame-lifter, the God-made-man, the burden-carrier, the lover of my soul…with forgiveness and grace like I had never known.”  It absolutely takes my breath away.  I’m just going to continue to use Angie’s words and leave you with one more quote from her book: “The Lord has delighted in the grace that washes you white as snow.  White.  As.  Snow.”