Lately The Lord has been reminding me about who I've been and yet what He has still allowed me to do. I daily get the privilege to invest in amazing youth girls, and very often college and twenty something's too. The funny thing is I have been at this ministry so long now that I seem more like "the church lady" than I do the promiscuous, manipulative, feisty girl I grew up being to these people I minister too.
I am constantly trying to share my story and how God has worked in my life with them. I share my mistakes and try to be very real and exposed. I am always trying to save them from the heartache, pain and damage sin can have on us.
These past few weeks I have just been completely taken back with awe and humility over the Lords grace to me. I sat at a lock in with my youth girls and heard their stories of how they have grown and how they are striving to fall more in Love with Jesus. I have gotten to see these journeys lived out the last six years. Wow. Me.
For those of you who don't know me well and don't know my story, let me briefly explain. I became a Christian in high school. Before then and even after then, boys have always been my struggle. I found my identity an worth in relationships. And I constantly felt that to receive their love or attention I had to be sexy. I had to connect with them "intimately". I only "went all the way" with one boy, but I did many things that make me blush to think of now with others.
"But He gives more grace..." James 4:6
Slowly and surely The Lord transformed me. He restored me and gave me a new identity and new worth. He have me standards. Praise Him!
I was sitting with my college best friends the other night. The Lord blessed me with such amazing girls during college who pushed me to know and follow Christ. What a blessing. Everyone of them has a much different back story than I do. I realized I am the only one of them who did not save myself for marriage. That's my story, and I can't change it.
But it was a reminder to me that no matter my age, the consequences of my sin will always be a reality for me. I am not condemned and The Lord has redeemed my sin in an amazing way. I have a validity to counsel girls who are struggling with purity in a way none of my friends do. But I will still carry the consequences with me. I don't get the pure story. Sin does that. It robs.
"But He gives more grace..."
I have an amazing, godly, pure husband that I do not deserve. Yet The Lord saw it fitting to bless me with him. I have a ministry that humbles me daily. Thank you Jesus.
But what's my point?
One, how gracious is our God?!! He restores. And if you need to be restored, he makes all things new. Believe that.
Two, if you haven't taken a path of impurity yet, don't! Realize that it will follow you your whole earthly life. Forgiveness is there, but consequences are too. Adam and Eve were able to continue talking to God, but they were never able to go back to the way it was before. Period.
"His mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning, great is your faithfulness." Lamentations 3:22-23
- Mrs.Pate via my iPhone
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