It's time to take ownership of who I was. It's time for me to put a name to things in my past so I can stop living in fear of repeating them or fear of them being thrown at me so I continue to feel shame.
The enemy wants me to stop living, yes physically he is out to seek, kill, and destroy... but emotionally too. He wants me to live in the darkness with him. He wants to continue to whisper my failures and faults in my ear like deadly sweet nothings. He wants me to be so scared of my future that I stop creating one and stay inside the walls I've built up.
But, I refuse. I refuse to get depressed. I refuse to live in the darkness. I refuse to let my past self keep me from becoming who I was created to be.
I feel in order to take control of my life now I need to take control of my past, and that means owning up to who I was. Not excusing them as sin for sin or pointing blame to other circumstances. Not being passive about my mistakes or minimizing them, but putting a name to them. This takes away the power the enemy thinks he has over me to live in fear and shame.
So, its time. I've not been a great person. I've tried really hard and then sometimes not so much- but I've failed over and over. I've lied. I've cheated, had inappropriate relationships. I abandoned my marriage. Lived in offence. I've not been a good friend. And the list goes on... I'm sure some of you can add to it.
But its time to believe this truth deep in my bones.
I am not the mistakes I have made. These things are not my name. These things are not my identity. And to most of you, they really haven't been my identity. I've been able to keep them covered well enough, but I've carried them as my own identity. And these are the heaviest name tags.
I'm taking them off. I'm not these things anymore. This is who I was, not who I am. No one can shame me more than I have myself, and I'm done with self-shaming.
It's time. It's time to step into who God created me to be. I wasn't created to live in seclusion, crippled by fear. By living in my shame and staying in the darkness is me saying I don't believe in what Christ did on the cross...Or even worse believing it but choosing not to see it. Isn't that worse? When we know the deed someone did for us and not acknowledge it? How rude... but this is on an eternal level, not just someone buying us dinner without saying 'thanks.'
It's time to accept that incredible gift and choose life. Choose to live and to step out of the darkness. Choose joy. Choose to drop these heavy name tags I've been wearing. I don't really know all that God has created me to be or what His plans are for me, but I know it's not what I have been.
Now, I'm just stuck with the ol' "Rhonda" name tag... I know it's not much better. but I'll wear it proudly over the alternative.
**Some say I'm painfully honest in my posts. Sorry, not sorry. I pray and mill over each post and I believe in transparency to show all the Christ has done. I would rather be brutally honest and make some people uncomfortable in their chair by my honesty than be surface and appear as a fraud. Life is hard and Christ is amazing and there is no other way to show it than putting all your shit on the table. Yes, I said Christ and shit in the same sentence. Now, go be kind to someone who doesn't deserve it.**
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