“He has removed our sins as far from us as the East is from
the West.” –Pslams 103:12
“But you are not like that, for you are a chosen people. You
are royal priest, a holy nation, God’s very own possession. As a result, you
can show others the goodness of God, for he called YOU out of the darkness into
His wonderful light!” -1 Peter 2:9
I hold on closely to those verses to remind me, that I am
new. I am not who I used to be. I am a new person in Christ and the old Lindsey
is gone. Who I used to be is not who I am now.
This week has been a strange one. With ups and downs, one
thing has stayed constant. God is good all the time. Through the times of my
anxiety spiking this week, God has spoken His still small voice of peace and
reminded me in so many different ways that He is here with me, that I am a new
creation, that I am still growing and learning and that He will never leave me
and His love is unfailing and constant.
My last post was about Monday and God crossing my path with
a man who had so little and taught me so much. God wasn’t going to let the
reminders and lessons stop there! Tuesday morning, I don’t even know how to
describe Tuesday morning beside, amazing. What happened Tuesday morning was
amazing. For you to understand to greatness of what happened Tuesday, I need to
go back in the past. A past I am not proud of and I don’t talk about often. In fact only a handful of people know this. But now is the time that I tell this story in my life. Now I know I need to tell it.
When I was about 14 years old, I was a freshman in High School,
a whole new environment than what I had been used to. I admired and looked up
to the juniors and seniors. They ran the school, I thought they were so cool
and I wanted to badly to be cool and accepted. At this time in my life, God was
there, I just ignored Him. I was too concerned with popularity, drama, and what
everyone else was doing to pay attention to God. I did attend church and was
involved with the youth group there. But I wasn’t opening up to God. I allowed
others to affect my decisions, how I acted and how I treated people.
Through church, I met a girl who was a year older than I
was. And she was so nice, caring, happy, and just all around a great person! We
went to school together, she was a sophomore and I was a freshman. Unfortunately,
the kids that I thought were so cool and that I wanted to be friends with, didn’t
like her. They were rude to her, mean and excluded her. She wanted to be my
friend and I wanted to be her friend too, but I allowed those people around me
and jealousy of her to affect my decisions because I wanted them to accept me
and I wanted to be popular. And though I wasn’t one who was bluntly rude to her
face, I was behind her back and that is just as bad. That year, shaped who I
would be for the rest of my High School years, and I am ashamed that I acted
the way I did. Through the next few years I acted like brat, I acted like a
word that starts with a “B”. I was so unhappy with myself and the way I looked,
that I became a butt. I felt that I was better than a lot of people, that I was
cooler, more popular, and just better than others. (Which was stupid and a
complete lie, I am no better than anyone on this earth and I am disgusted that
I even thought I was. But again, I was too consumed with popularity to see the
bigger picture.)
Backing up to freshman year and the girl who was treated
wrong and wanted to be my friend, but I would have rather hung out with the “popular”
kids. I found other friends, but continued to ignore her, and snub my nose at
her. Eventually she had to move schools because of how badly kids started
treating her.
Shortly after that, she was diagnosed with Cancer. A type of
Sarcoma, that was very progressive. I kept up with her on Facebook, and when I
saw that she had Cancer, a weight dropped on me. I began to feel guilt for the
way I acted and how I refused to be her friend, how I could have stood up and
told those kids to stop being buttheads. I didn’t understand why she got cancer;
she was always nice and sweet. I felt God telling me to connect with her and
apologize. That I needed to before it was too late. Every time, I felt that, I
pushed it aside. I ignored it and just went on with life.
Through each day of her fight with this horrible cancer, she
kept praising God. Her faith stayed so strong and she never got upset or angry
in her fight against Cancer. When she spoke, she spoke with excitement of
Christ’s love for her. She stayed so positive and so centered in Christ, when
she was in the middle of fighting a painful, fast growing cancer. She was unbelievable,
her strength, her faith, her will, her heart. It seemed that the harder times
got, the bigger her heart got and the more she praised God. And each time her
name or an update came across my Facebook Newsfeed, I felt the nudge to message
her and apologize. And every time, I pushed it aside and ignored it. There was
a time I told her I was praying for her, but I let my pride in the way and
couldn’t get out an “I’m Sorry”.
She fought 4 years, she fought hard for 4 years, and then
she passed away and I know without a doubt she is in Heaven with Jesus. I didn’t
think her passing would affect me as hard as it did. It broke me, and it broke
me down hard. I couldn’t even bring myself to go to her visitation. I felt so
unworthy of going. She was a beautiful girl with an even more beautiful spirit.
And I was rude to her. In her passing, God stopped me and showed me that, there
is so much more to life than trying to be popular, or accepted into a crowd that’s
not even accomplishing anything in life except being miserable. You know, I can’t
even remember one name from the group of “cool kids” I wanted to be in when I
was a freshman. Not one name. I learned from her, that I was living my life
wrong, that I was treating people wrong, that I wasn’t being the Lindsey that I
was created and raised to be. Trust me, I wasn’t raised to act the way I acted.
In fact, I’m sure my Momma would have beat me if she knew how rude I was back
then. I remember the day I read that her battle with cancer had ended, I sat on
my front porch and cried for hours, I couldn’t stop crying. I felt like I was
being crushed with guilt and regret. It was overwhelming that amount of guilt I
felt. God had given me 4 years’ worth of chances to apologize to her, FOUR
YEARS! And I ignored every single nudge. I kept this false mindset that I was
better than others, that I was so cool, that I didn’t need to apologize, for 4
years. I wasted 4 years! You do know what I could have accomplished, had I said
no to my prideful thinking, had I said no to acting like others? I could have
accomplished a ton more than what I did. Actually, to be honest, I can’t
remember one good thing I accomplished that is worth anything in my High School
years.
I carried that guilt, shame, and regret for a long time. I
wanted to apologize to her but I didn’t know how. My mindset changed that day.
I quit worrying about what others thought and what others were doing and I
promised myself that I would never allow myself to treat someone like that again,
or wait until it was too late to apologize for my faults. My heart opened up to
God and allowed Him to speak to me and I listened. Though I still carried that
heavy load for a long time, I felt I could never do enough to make up for the
way I acted when I was a foolish child. I couldn’t even hear her name without
breaking down crying and letting the guilt consume me. There were many times I
would try to push it aside and not acknowledge it, but it was always there. Every
day, every moment, that guilt and shame was there and it was destroying my
heart.
I never talked about it, not to my friends, not to my
family. I never brought it up, I never brought up how broken I was. I didn’t
want people who knew the real me, the new me to know that I had been such an
awful person. That I had been rude, mean, judgmental- I was trying so hard to
change who I was, I was pushing and fighting to become the Lindsey, God created
me to be, The Lindsey that Christ died for. I was ashamed of who I allowed
myself to be. About a year ago, I was meeting with my pastor and we were
talking about my past, and where was God in the ups and downs that have made up
my life. And out of nowhere, (And I had no intention of telling him this, I
mean my family and friends didn’t even know this) I started talking about who I
was in high school and I told him about her. I began to cry and told him
everything. All the shame, guilt, heart break, I told him. God knew, I needed
to let it out; God knew I needed healing and forgiveness from this, He knew I
couldn’t become who He had made me to be, if I kept carrying this baggage, so
He opened my mouth and had me let it out.
And there it was, every bit of shame, every bit of guilt,
every bit of regret, spoken and laid out in the open. My pastor noticed how
hard it was for me, and how much it hurt me. And he knew, it was something I
needed to deal with, and now, not later, not next week or year but now. He had
the best advice that changed everything. He told me to go home, go to a quiet
place and pray. Then write a letter to her, telling her everything I need to,
everything I should have told her when she was alive, get everything out! And
then take a couple days, and then go back to a quiet place and pray, pray that
God helps me to know what she would say back to me. Pray that God would help me
release this and forgive myself.
And I did. And I was blown away but what God did in that! It
took me some hours to write my letter to her, a lot of paper, a lot of tears, a
lot of prayer. But I wrote it and felt a bit of relief that I got out
everything I needed to say to her, I poured my heart out. I waited a few days
and kept praying, help my God, help me to hear your words God, help me to
change. And as I was driving home one evening (I believe after church) I was
praying to God that He would help me, and it was almost like I could hear her
say “Girl, what are you doing holding on to all that mess for so long? Don’t
you know I forgave you a long time ago! You need to forgive yourself and learn
from it! Use that to be a better person! Trust me, I’m doing great up here in
Heaven! I love you, girl! And I forgive you!” I immediately started sobbing! I
felt all the weight I had carried for so long lift off of my shoulders. I felt
the forgiveness I had so desperately needed for so long. I felt like she was
hugging me! It was amazing! I couldn’t stop thanking and praising God for what
He had done and what he was doing! As soon as I got home I told my family about
what had happened, how much shame I felt and how now I feel it gone and I’ve
forgiven myself!
After that, when I hear her name or think about her, I am
not beaten down with shame and guilt, I smile and feel a warmth in my heart,
that she is in heaven smiling down on me. That she changed my life. And is a
reminder that I am a new creation. That I am not who I was, when I was in High
School, but I am, who God created me to be. That I don’t have to carry all that
weight anymore, that I am forgiven and I can take that major lesson and use it
to extend positivity and Christ’s love to those that need it. That it is not
worth following the “In-Crowd”, that accomplishes nothing, but it is worth it
to follow Christ, because that accomplishes everything.
Now after that long story, let me tie that into last
Tuesday. She passed away a couple years ago and I started working here in February.
It had been awhile since I had thought about her, but I have been dealing with
not falling into the negativity of the people at my workplace. I’ve been
struggling to stay centered in Christ and resist the urge to act like them(they
act a lot like I used to when I was younger). Our office is in the process of
getting rid of our old paper charts and as I was sitting at my desk with a
coworker pulling that charts off the wall behind me, she pulled one and said “Isn’t
this the little girl that passed away”
I thought, that’s strange, we rarely have patients that are
young. I turned around and all I saw was her name. Her name was written at the
top of the chart. I replied, “Yeah, she passed away.” One of our nurses who my
coworker was asking, looked at me strangely and said “ How did you know that?
Did you know her?”
Tears started to come to my eyes and I smile and I replied “Yes,
I knew her. She was an amazing girl, so beautiful. She taught me a lot.”
It was one of the first times I saw her name and realized, I
didn’t get pounded down with shame, but I felt warmth and love, I remembered
that the old Lindsey is gone, and I am the new Lindsey. I felt that she was
smiling down on me, that she is now my guardian angel. And I love her so much
for the impact she had on my life. That now, I look back and see the beauty of
her life and her message and legacy she left. She impacted so many people in
her short time here on earth. She changed so many lives, including mine, and I
can’t thank her enough for that. And I
will always remember her smile, her laugh and her heart for God. And I am so
blessed and thankful that God crossed our paths, that I had the privilege of
knowing her, and that I feel so strongly in my heart that she is one of my
guardian angels!
So, if you are carrying around shame, guilt, and regret- drop it. Take it to Christ's feet and lay it down. Pour your heart out to Him. Be honest, don't push it aside and let it knock you down. Don't ignore it. God made you, He knows what you need. Listen to Him and push your pride out the door and ask for forgiveness. Acknowledge your wrongs, Apologize to those you've hurt, Forgive yourself, and Learn for a better tomorrow! You can do it! God is waiting for you to break down your walls and fall to Him! I did it, and now I've shared this with the world, in hopes that it will reach someone that needs to hear it. You can do it too! I pray that you are able to! Trust God, He's holding your heart!
God is good all the time, and all the time God is good!
I love you, girl and thank you helping to change my heart.
