This one hit me hard today. I sometimes still struggle with feeling good about myself. I struggle with feeling doubts and fears. I struggle with feeling good enough, or righteous enough, or even worthy enough. Lately, my struggle has been even more personal. I am struggling with forgiving enough.
It is easy to feel like I am not what I should be. It is easy to let myself get swallowed up in thoughts of depression and anxiety. It is easy to doubt myself. It is even easier to look at my own sins and doubt that there is any forgiveness for one such as I.
I have to remember that He already paid the price and that I am included in that. I have to quit condemning myself for things I have already repented of. I have to learn to let go and trust His mercy and His love.
Something happened yesterday that really made me think. I was talking to someone about forgiveness and the difficulty that I am having forgiving one person. He asked me if I could forgive the fact that they were ill and not in their right mind. He wondered if I could allow myself to not look at them as if they are whole, but to look at them as if they are mentally challenged. (they are, and hopefully I can).
Looking at sin as a result of an illness is slightly easier for me to accept and might allow me to have the peace in my heart that my Heavenly Father has always intended for me to have. Peace doesn't mean I have to give anyone permission to hurt me. It doesn't mean that I can't be sad it happened and that I have to trust someone who has never gotten any help for their illness. It just means that I can put my trust in Heavenly Father and let Him judge.
Jesus chose the nails, for you, for me and even for people we don't like very much. He chose the nails so that we would all have the chance to repent and live with Him again. We could not and can not ever do it alone. He loved us enough to choose the suffering and the nails.
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