Your Scars are Your Trophies III (Wear Them with Pride)

Hey everyone!

This week has been a monumental week for me as, thanks to Tuesday's post on wearing your scars with pride and the follow up on Wednesday, God has really been doing a transformational work of power, purpose and progress within me causing me to never look at any aspect of my struggle in the same way again.

I was carrying around, without fully realising, a whole heap of guilt and shame over how I'd reacted to what had happened to me in the past. Instead I should have been coming to grips with the reality that, thanks to the message from Pastor Steven Furtick, God helped me to realise that it is in those very mistakes themselves that His power will be revealed (Phil 4:13) strongest.

I'm not ashamed of my walk anymore, I'll be more likely to talk about it now, not less, if you ask me about it because my struggle contains the key for someone else's freedom today and that's why I'm writing so freely...

Face up to Your Fears, Own up to Your Pain

For too long have we been locking our skeletons up in the closet when the reality is that we have to go to those very painful places that caused us the most harm with a proverbial screwdriver in hand, take the doors of the hinges to these dark places, and let the Light & Love of God shine in to banish the pain of these memories that haunt us.

Do you think I don't know what you're going through which is causing you to keep hold of your pain? You're right, I don't, but what I do know is that the longer you keep hold of it, the more damage it is doing to both you as a person and your future.

Do you think that my destiny as a husband & father is impacted by me never having had any relationship experience?

No!

Do you think that your destiny, whatever that looks like, is impacted by you keeping hold of your pain from your past today?

Absolutely!

You can either keep hold of it and, like a scab, keep picking at it forcing it to bleed over and over and over again until you've done serious damage to your self-esteem, or alternatively you can let it go to God: -

I'm sick of hearing people whine & complain about how other people treat them or have treated them when you have the power in your hands to make a change!

If you have to, you can change the company you hang around with, or simply change your mind that you're not going to hold onto this pain anymore. That's what repentance is all about; a changing of the mind.

I'm going to be quite strong here and say that if you've been struggling with unforgiveness from an ex that hurt you, a friend that left you, or a loved one that mistreated you, letting go is the best thing that you can do.

Yes, you might be left with scars either literal or otherwise, but you have to remember that the reason that you struggled yesterday, is so that someone can be free tomorrow, if you'll just open up and learn to love your scars for what they are; a part of your story that no one can take away!

#ORALE

I'm sorry to put it so bluntly, but I remember how many times that I hurt myself in the past by keeping hold of words that people said as though I was convinced that they had the power to derail my destiny...

NEWSFLASH!!!

Only God can change your destiny!

Final Thought

Are you going to give up without a fight, or are you, like me, going to go down swinging even if it takes every waking breath to fight your way past your struggles and your pain?!

You'll find the freedom if you'll just learn to look past your pain, see through your struggles, to the cross of Jesus where He died, just so that you can choose to know Him more and more every single day of your life!

Shock, drop & awe!