This is a keeper!

I just read this on "Distilled"'s blog and it was so encouraging I'm re-posting it here...

"Consecrate yourselves,
for tomorrow the LORD will do
amazing things among you."
Joshua 3:5

There's something about new years, new months, new days, new seasons and fresh starts. That knowing without a doubt that "the old has gone, the new has come" (2 Corinthians 5:17). I am totally accepted and forgiven by His never-ever unending love, grace and mercy. This blows me away! And i utterly revel in it...

Several years ago i finally hit the place where there was no other way to go except up or die. I couldn't go on anymore. It was black and it hurt too much. And it may sound strange but i'm grateful for that place because that was where my pain made me into a desperate woman, and desperate people will do desperate things.

God led me to a woman i was acquainted with in church, a woman who i only really knew from a distance but i knew deep inside that i had to talk to her. And so i tentatively reached out to this woman for help, making one of those desperate pacts with myself to be totally real and honest with her no matter the cost to myself. We got together every week for several weeks. I talked. I told her things i had never told anyone else before - ever. I did it, i took the mask off and became real and transparent with her. I learnt to trust, i spoke from my heart and spoke truth about things that i'd never been allowed or able to speak about before. I cried for weeks where i hadn't been able to cry for years. God started to heal my heart. I could never have experienced the healing that God brought into my life at that time in any other way than through that God given flesh and blood relationship where i became real and more me than i had ever been before. The light i walked into there broke the darkness over me. I started to come alive again.
I know a lot about mercy, unconditional acceptance, who i am and my value because of it. I also know a lot about new days and fresh starts... and God's grace. This first week of 2007 isn't what i would have chosen but God is still God. Today it's time to consecrate myself again to the Lord, for tomorrow is a new day...