Good Friday: My testimony

At the age of 23 I had just gone through the roughest year of my life. I was in the process of a bitter nasty divorce and my father whom I loved dearly, had just died of complications from alcoholism. I couldn't have been more confused and lonely and scared. I wasn't a pronounced Atheist, but I might as well have been. Being a christian didn't make sense to me. Prayer seemed like a sham and if God was even real He seemed like a heartless mean man. I was headed no where fast with tears in my eyes and a bottle of vodka in my hand, and I had no way out.

I attended church when I felt like it with my now husband, both our families went to the same church. so we joined them periodically, but the times I did go I was cold and bitter. There was a wall of resentment built up in my heart for the things that had happened in my life. All I wanted to do was cry during the service. 

Fast forward about 4 months to late January 2009 to a sermon I heard on forgiveness. The sermon that changed my life forever. The problem with the issues that I dealt with in my life at the time is that there wasn't anything I could do about the actual problem. There was nothing I could do to fix the fact that I felt my dad had chosen to die and there was nothing I could do about the way my ex husband was treating me through our divorce. And so I was angry. I was SO angry with them. 

But that's the problem with holding onto anger towards other people, there is NOTHING that you can do to fix them. The only thing that you can do for the situation is to fix yourself and how you deal with the situation, and the only way that I could deal with myself was to first to forgive the people I was mad at, and to forgive myself for the choices that were made that might have led up to my built up wall of anger. 

I learned about Jesus. I mean, I knew who the guy was, sort of, but I didn't really know. I had no freakin idea what Jesus would do to my life. I learned about how He died on the cross. I learned about how he sacrificed His LIFE in order to forgive us for our sins and that maybe I should give that a shot and forgive others for their sins.

It wasn't an easy task or a quick process by any means. It took years to figure out what it really meant to forgive people for their sins. It took a long time to make peace with my life and it took a lot of digging up the past before I learned that what I really needed to do was make peace and forgive myself, and then fix myself, before I could start to really forgive others. And it's still hard. 

Our pastor has this saying, Right Foot, Left Foot. Its the simplest saying with the most powerful meaning in my life. I am an addict, former, recovered, what-have-you; ask any addict how their doing and they will tell you they are never recovered. It's a constant battle of anger and anxiety. But Jesus CHANGED MY LIFE and taught me that I could forgive myself for my mistakes and that the ONLY way to get through this life was to walk it one step at a time, left foot, right foot, with Jesus by your side and in your heart. 

Good Friday is the day that Jesus died on the cross. The day He paid the ultimate sacrifice in order to forgive us for our sins. So pray today. Pray to be thankful of all that Jesus did for us. Pray for Jesus to give you the heart to UNDERSTAND what He did for us. And pray for the peace to be able to forgive whatever it is that is going on in your life that is causing your wall to build up. 

Every time I hear people ask about God and how I know if He is real, I think about my life when I was 23. I know God is real because of the way He changed my heart and made me able to get through the day without crying, without drinking away my sadness, and without fighting with anyone. And I know, that if I do fail, that he will forgive me, and He will love me more, again and again.