Only Jesus can understand this joy

I can't begin to describe the joy I feel at this moment. The freedom I feel. The pure emotion of total release is going throughout my soul.

I have spent 6 months beating myself up over my past. Living in fear of what others in my past thought about me. Living in torment knowing how I had hurt them. Living in the confusion of looking towards the future, and regretting horribly the past. Clinging to the bumper of my future and holding a sign towards the past that said please forgive me. I had one foot in the great ocean of possibility, and one foot in the deep sea of despair over what I had done in the past. I lived uncomfortably with a desperate need to make things right.

If you have ever left something behind you without closure, you know how I've been feeling. It's as if you can't move on, because you are so lost in trying to say goodbye.

I have avoided my past and the people in it for 6 months. Terrified of what might happen if I ran into them. Terrified of rejection and in fear of seeing the results of what I had done in a lack of love on the part of someone else that I had cared for so deeply but had to desert in order to save myself. The tragedy of loss is that it often keeps us from moving ahead to find the hope of new life and new strength.

The cross I have carried over the past 6 months was one that I felt I had to bear alone, because of my regret, because of my guilt over the sins of my past, because I thought I deserved the pain. I punished myself without mercy because I felt that I should suffer because of what I had done. Though I had been forgiven by Jesus, I still held onto the guilt, because I had not seen the people in my past. I did not know if they held contempt for me. I did not know if they despised me as I sometimes despised myself.

Tonight I went to a church service, and I knew those people would be there. I was so afraid. My stomach churned within itself and I feared that I would implode at any moment into tears of frustration and pure grief of not knowing whether or not I would be accepted, or if I would be turned away from.

Before and after the service I saw those people. I smiled at them, they smiled back. I said hello, and after the service most of them hugged me. It was a great relief. A relief I have longed for desperately. A relief that almost killed me not having.

I praised Jesus the whole way home. I shouted, I cried, I spoke with that heavenly language. I lifted my hands, I pounded the dash, I danced to the music on my radio, and I thanked Jesus from the bottom of my heart for all He had done for me. For where He had brought me from and where He was leading me to.

The last 6 months have been so healing in my life. I have grown so close to Jesus and truly walked with Him with all my heart. I have made some of the most wonderful friends and I truly love everyone at my church. I feel at home with them. They are my family. My brothers and sisters in Christ. I love everything about my church. I love how much I feel free to praise Him because of the forgiveness I found in Jesus. Because of the lack of condemnation of my sins hanging over my head. I have discovered that you can get through things you never thought you would be able to, if Jesus is holding your hand. I've let go of fear and of anger. I've let go of so much pain. And now, At last, I can let go of regret. And let go I will.

I'm so thankful for moving forward. And so thankful for the people in my past who stood by me and was there for me through so much. I'm so thankful for the people in my present that have welcomed me and loved me, people who I will walk into my future with. And now I feel as though I am free to have some of the people in my past, walk back into my present, and hopefully they will want to be a part of my future as well.

You can't go back, and I don't want to. I'm very happy with where the Lord has led me. But I'm so thankful to see those people that I hurt so bad, smiling and hugging me. It did my heart so much good to know that they don't hate me. That they don't hold my sins against me. It's such a release and such a feeling of freedom.

So with all my heart I say, THANK YOU JESUS!!

NOTHING IS GOING TO HOLD ME BACK ANYMORE!!!

SO LOOK OUT PEOPLE!!

:)

GOD IS GOOD!! :)