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Did you ever feel like your mistakes were too much of a mess to be forgiven?

I have before until God gave me a glimpse of what it is like to accept grace for what it is…..

completely unmerited and undeserved.

Have you noticed the flaws in your reflection because you never realised the beauty that God saw in you when he breathed Man into existence and then shaped your womanly body from his rib?

I have.. especially my body image because as a little girl I saw myself as having being fat..definately not an hourglass figure or movie star curves.. and not the way my Heavenly Father saw me!

God never looks at us through the lenses of sometimes how we see ourselves, but rather He would look at you through eyes of unconditional love and complete acceptance.

Maybe you have dated men who devalued you and gave you a lack of self respect or worth?

I know how that feels like and I soon realised that those relationships only hurt me more than healing my heart.

God gave us emotional needs that only our husbands could fully understand and care for even when we sometimes don’t have the words to fully express how we are feeling inside on our bad days and on our good days.

I was born and raised in a large family of nine and from a very early age I knew about God.. but it wasn’t until after I experienced more of the brokenness that life can sometimes bring that I made the conscious choice to surrender all of my shattered parts to Jesus so that He could start to make me whole.

My Mum received a phone call from one of the Doctors at the Royal Perth hospital telling her that Dad would only make it through two gruelling surgeries if they removed part of his cheekbone and his eyeball too.

I was a 14 year old girl at the time and I remember feeling in shock at the news and afraid that our Dad might not come home.

They told her it was an aggressive form of Melanoma Cancer and it had almost spread to his brain which would have been fatal, had it not been for the life-saving surgeries that took them many hours in an amphitheatre.

It wasn’t until a few days after my Dad was wheeled out of the amphitheater on the bed stretcher that my brother David drove us to the hospital to visit him.

My Mum asked me if I’d like to go too and I remember saying yes without hesitation because all I wanted was to know is if he was ok.

My Dad smiled drowsily at me from the hospital bed stretcher and our Pastor embraced me in a giant bear hug when I walked in there.. which prepared me from what I would see next!

My Dad’s face was partially covered with a massive, white bandage and he was sitting up as best as he could, keeping strong like he always does….and as the nurse came in, she asked us if we’d like to see his face uncovered and my Mum politely answered ‘No. ‘

I looked from our Pastor, to my Dad and then at my Mum and brother.

What was happening seemed to be crazy, like it shouldn’t be real!

And I wished with all of my heart that it wasn’t reality, but unfortunately it was.

It reminds me of how I felt inside my soul.

BROKEN

After this happened to my Dad I had been struggling with anxiety, a panic attack and mental health so my Parents arranged for me to go and see a Counselor when I was sixteen years old.

I met girls my age who would talk about their lives as if they were picture perfect with good looking boyfriends, cheerleading squads and partying but nothing could really compare with living a set apart and pure, conscious lifestyle according to God’s Word as I learned later on and that all I thought I had, was actually a superficial idea of what loving relationships actually should be built on.

All the world was offering me was sinking sand and letting God build my foundations on rock was the best choice anyone could ever make!

I remember wanting to be free from the fear that I felt had a hold over my life and was holding me back from living for Jesus but feeling like I was alone, even though at the time I was with a boyfriend.

I am very grateful for that evening in my family’s living room when my Dad asked me if I would like to give my heart to Jesus in September 2015, because it was actually in that moment that my heart was crying out for fulfillment in a void that wasn’t being satisfied by all that I thought it would and I felt truly convicted inside my heart for all I had done wrong and i realised I was a sinner.

My heart felt sad and weighed down until Jesus came and changed all of that!

I let Dad lead me into the sinners prayer and my youngest brother Joshua gave his heart to Jesus in the same night.

When I started praying with my Dad, I sensed a rushing waterfall cascading over my entire body that was so tangible it felt like I was standing under thousands upon millions of tiny raindrops covering me from head to toe.

That God kind of love that filled me from the inside out, was like a scene in a Disney princess movie when the girl was completely transformed from being dressed in dirty rags into a beautiful ball gown or how the catapillar becomes a butterfly.

For God so loved the world that He gave his one and only Son, that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.

(John 3:16)