Four years ago, when my relationship was new, I drove my man around because I had a car and he did not yet have his license. It's no secret that I am older than him, and that used to be hard for me, but he got his license a few months later, then graduated high school and grew up and the age difference has made less of a difference each passing year.
Anyway, when the relationship was new and we didn't know everything about each other, I struggled to let him see the real me. I didn't want to scare him away, but I didn't think it was fair to try to hide things about myself that were so much a part of me. One thing I certainly could not try to hide any longer was my standing with God.
"God hates me and I'm going to hell, anyway." I would say, too often.
See, I grew up in a Missouri Synod Lutheran church. Nothing against the Lutherans, they're Christians, too, but my church growing up preached forgiveness, but with a heavy emphasis on works. It always seemed to me that we were only forgiven if we just didn't sin. So, to my seventeen year-old mind, since I was a sinner, I must not be saved.
Driving Garth home from school one day, I said again, "well, I'm going to hell anyway." Garth just looked at me and asked, "Do you love God? Do you believe in Jesus? And that He died on the cross to forgive your sins?"
To which my reply was, "Yes."
"Well then, you're forgiven. If you love God, that means God loves you, which means Jesus died for you, which means you are forgiven, and you will go to heaven!"
It hit me like a ton of bricks. Suddenly, everything made so much sense! I felt so much relief, so much comfort in those words. His words changed my life.
It wasn't until about a month after that discussion that I really learned true forgiveness, however. As we said our goodbyes in the car one night, we leaned in for a kiss, and I stopped. I suddenly felt overwhelmed with the pieces of me he didn't know yet; not physically, but the deep down, dark past side of me. I knew right then and there that I had to tell him. I started, "There's something I need to tell you..." but the words just wouldn't come. Instead, there were tears. Swelling up in my eyes, trying to breach the dam, but I held them back, which only made it harder to talk.
"Would it help if I went first?" he asked.
I nodded, then he proceeded to tell me the biggest shames he had in his past. The past he was trying to get away from. The old him he didn't want to be anymore.
What a relief those words were to me -- and at a moment when I didn't even suspect that he knew where this conversation was going. I understood this person who was speaking to me, and felt closer to him than ever at that moment.
I finally opened up and told him the sins I had committed, the biggest shames of my past. The old me I was trying to run away from.
"Bre," he said, calmly, taking my hand, "I forgive you."
"I forgive you, too" I replied.
We held each other, prayed together, and said goodnight.
On my drive home, I thought about the things that were said. How righteous we could think we were, or other people were, when really everyone has something they may be trying to hide. The biggest realization, the best comfort to me that night, was that if Garth could forgive me so quickly and freely because of his little, new, unprofessed love for me, then how much more quickly and freely did my heavenly Father with a great big, lifelong love for me forgive?
So much more! He forgave and loved so much more! And still does today. May you know that in your life, too.
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