My Christianity began and ended with my salvation. What do I mean by that? Well, I believed that God had forgiven me for my “sins” and I was “saved”. Translated: I’ve done what I need to do to go to heaven. I didn’t think about my past. I didn't imagine living without shame. I only thought, "Ok, now you have to be good." The past was bad- forget the past. Who I was was bad; God doesn’t like that part of me but He accepts me now because I’m going to be better. I’m going to do better. If I just hate that part of me enough... if I just turn my back and deny it enough... then I can be acceptable.
I learned to present the best side of me. The goal: convince others that I was a good christian, yet in my mind there was always this voice on repeat: you are a fake. You are not acceptable. Remember who you were. Remember what you’ve done. If anyone knew the REAL you, they'd reject you too.
I was set on running from the past to forget, instead of running to His arms to experience forgiveness.
What I didn't know was that God has a special place in His heart for runners like me. He had no intention of allowing me to wallow in the lies I believed. What I didn’t know when I was saved, when I accepted Jesus as Lord of my life, is that He didn’t just want me try to live the best life I could FROM NOW ON- He wanted MY WHOLE LIFE. He died for ALL OF IT.
MY struggle was how could I give him something that I couldn’t come to terms with in my own mind? How do you forgive yourself for actions you can’t even speak of because the guilt and regret are too overwhelming? How could He ever love those parts of me? I didn’t understand that. But He was about to show me. And to show me, He first had to lead me to a safe place where I could begin to open up…
Genesis 21:17-19: God heard the boy crying, and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven and said to her, "What is the matter, Hagar? Do not be afraid; God has heard the boy crying as he lies there. Lift the boy up and take him by the hand, for I will make him into a great nation." Then God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water. So she went and filled the skin with water and gave the boy a drink.
In this passage, we meet Hagar, who is the slave girl of Abraham's wife Sarai. She is a runaway. She has been marginalized and tossed aside. She makes the unfathomable decision to set her son under a tree to die, as she is thrusted into an impossible situation. But God. He sees her in her misery. He hears the cries of the boy. And though she has made regrettable decisions, He saves her.
God sees us in our messes and has compassion. He is not content to leave us wandering in the desert. He reaches down and offers us, just at the right time, a life line. Maybe we've done unthinkable things and we are scared it's too late. Maybe we have a whole life filled with regrets and shame and we wonder if God could ever really love us, after all we've done.
The lesson we learn from Hagar is that He is relentless in His pursuit, unwilling to let us go, except of our own free will. He will encounter us time and time again, (see Genesis 16:13) wanting us to draw near to Him and the life that only He can bring out of impossible situations.
We just have to step out of the silence, and cry out....
