There was a point in my life that I thought my sin and my shame were too far from God’s grace… and then God got ahold of my heart.
It was at my world race training camp that I first fully embraced the grace God had for me. Someone had said when we don’t give God all areas of our lives, even the darkest ones, we are hindering opportunities to let his goodness show.
Okay, so what does that mean?
To me this meant I needed to start owning my story. I needed to embrace the good, the bad and the ugly parts of my past to be able to fully accept God’s grace for my life.
This concept had been a struggle for me in the past year or so. I couldn’t seem to grasp how or why God would want me to own up to the ugly parts of my life. If he had made me a new creation in Him I didn’t need to face the shameful secrets inside of me.
He had washed me clean, so why would I tell anyone about the dirt hiding underneath?
He had cleansed me and so if I no longer needed to acknowledge the dirty parts of my past why would I?
These questions rattled in my brain leaving me with the unsettling feeling that I could not reconcile my old self and my new self. My view of myself as a new creation in Christ meant I was beautiful, yet I thought to be beautiful meant I had to deny or forget all the sinful things I had done because surely no one who was spiritually or physically beautiful would commit the sins I had committed.
But then when I considered all the things I had done I recognized that I had learned from them, they made me who I was and so to just deny them or ignore them was like lying to myself about who I was, and I didn’t want to do that.
At training camp I learned to take ownership of my story, even the dirty parts. The unsettling feelings I had had started to become clear because I was realizing the beauty I wanted to see in myself didn’t come from being a new creation, it came from the transformation between my old and new self. I couldn’t reconcile my old and new self because I had been trying to use my own logic, which had told me there was no way that anything good could come out of the sin I had been in, to be beautiful I had to pretend the sin had never been there.
I was humbled to realize the beauty wasn’t me, wasn’t my flesh but it was Christ inside me that made me beautiful. The beauty was found when I left my logic and accepted God’s grace, humbly coming before him and admitting that I couldn’t reconcile my old and new self because I couldn’t be my own savior.
It didn’t make sense because it doesn’t.
It doesn’t make sense for God to love me after all the things I have done, but He does. It doesn’t make sense that he would offer me another chance after I have already messed up so much, but He does. It doesn’t make sense that He would forgive me after I had turned my face so many times, but He does.
It doesn’t make sense and it doesn’t have to.
That is why I am beautiful.
I am beautiful because after I lost my virginity, God gave me a new identity in Him. I am beautiful because after I went through long and hard months battling depression, God gave me a newfound joy in him. I am beautiful because after seeking love and identity in men and still feeling empty, God has showed me that he is the ultimate lover and fulfiller of my heart. I am beautiful because after lonely nights of just wanting to be loved and turning to pleasing myself, God has wrapped me in His arms and let me rest my head on His chest. I am beautiful because after trying to find appreciation by sending inappropriate photos of myself, God lifted my head and taught me to see myself the way He sees me.
It is only by God’s grace that I have realized what it truly means to be beautiful.
There is nothing attractive about being a trashy girl, seeking for love in all the wrong places, but God is not interested in what looks good. God saw me in my darkest moments and even then He didn’t give up on me. When all I could make of myself was a wayward woman, too ashamed to come before the throne of God, God extended an invitation to accept His grace.
I am not what makes me beautiful, I cannot with my own knowledge understand how I became who I am today after all the filth I put myself into, but I am blessed to say I have a Savior who is capable of giving grace past logical limits and no matter how far I stray, no matter which way, His love will always find me.
My story may have dark parts and there may be more battles to come but I now understand why I cannot forget who I once was because it has made me who I am.
In owning up to the darkest parts of my story I am realizing how great God’s grace truly is. What is beautiful is that there is a God who loved me so deeply that He sent His son to die on a cross for each and every shameful thing I have done or will do. He saw me in the darkest parts of my life and when I saw nothing worth saving He saw someone who was worth it, He saw someone who could be redeemed, He saw someone who could be restored, He saw me in my shame and He wrapped his arms around me and He gave love to someone that was so undeserved…
He brought beauty from my ashes and that is what makes me beautiful.
