“Terri, did you ever wear bows in your hair when you were little?”

Head bowed over her crossed legs,  hands stretched out in “receive” mode, she laughs. “You know, I don’t know… I used to wear it up alot.”

“Pigtails?” Kevin rests one hand lovingly on her shoulder; his is one of many that adorn her back during our session of prayer.

She gives another titter. “Yes. Pigtails.”

“And did you have freckles?”

At this, her head pops up and reveals a wide grin. “You know, the Lord is really funny. I have seen pictures of myself when I am a child – in my mind – and I look totally different from myself. I know it’s me but it doesn’t look like me at all. I was always so sad. The girl I see is so… happy!”

Kevin smiles almost knowingly. “I saw this picture as we were praying - of you as a little girl. Bows in your hair and freckles, and you were just that: happy.”

Terri’s hair bobs around her shoulders as she nods and laughs again. “Thank you, Lord!”

We proceed to bathe Terri in prayer and several more words of encouragement and supernatural pictures tumble forth, and the pleasure of the Lord is thick in the room.

And afterward I found myself thinking about this whole course of events. This idea of the undoing of the past that we know in the wake of the grace of a loving God. Is it really possible to have your past rewritten and molded to reflect the new creation we have become in Christ? Is it even more possible then, to go so deep into the love of the Father that past sin and mistakes can actually be forgotten?

A close friend of mine once shared with me a personal story from her past in which she regrettably compromised her purity. Since that time of her life, after growing closer to the Lord and learning the heart of forgiveness, she also informed me that she had begun to forget that part of her life.

And I remember thinking: wow. How sweetly beautiful that the Creator of the Universe would go so far as to forgive and then to help us to forget, unraveling old threads as newer ones are sewn into our hearts like private biographical tapestries.

Personally, I find that I remember little of my childhood, which always distresses me. But sometimes I wonder if some of this is simple grace. Perhaps some bad memories have been erased – whether out of a defense mechanism or God’s protection. I realize of course that God allows certain sinful events of our lives to maintain their potency so that we can remember the grace and forgiveness of God. To recognize the pit from which He has pulled us. But those memories are not meant to bring condemnation or constant sandpaper-on-silk unshakeable guilt.  Scripture reminds us, “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death [Romans 8:1-2].”

We are free!!! Children in the eyes of God. Once we seek His forgiveness, He grants it freely and sets us on a higher pathway of holiness. He casts the sins of the past as far as the east is from the west [Psalm 103:12]. And that’s a long way. Oh, how little we really know of His grace…

Like every believer, I am stained by the memories of a past that I regret, like that pesky orange ring around a bathtub. As hard as I try to scrub it away, it persists. I know, in my head, that I have been forgiven. But have I forgiven myself? As people, this seems to be the hardest part. Rather than letting Jesus, the “Mr. Clean” of our souls who can battle any stubborn bathroom stain and win, we take to scrubbing our own mess ourselves until our knuckles are bleeding and our arms are exhausted. We fail in every way.

When forgiveness is introduced to us, we often don’t know how to act. The concept of being forgiven is, in fact, so foreign to the natural man, that even the religious men of Jesus’ day charged Him with blasphemy when the reality of forgiveness was displayed [Matthew 9].  They knew that only God had power to forgive; what man is capable of pardoning sin, let alone forgiving himself?

The truth is that only God can grant forgiveness and reconnect man with Himself through Christ BUT we are also called to forgive as we have been forgiven [See Colossians 3:13]. Not just those who sin against us, but even toward our own hearts.

I can’t scrub away my own past, but Jesus can wash me white as snow. I can’t find favor with God through any other means than the blood of Christ. And I can’t forget anything on my own. But in Christ, I am learning how free I am. Slowly, my mind and heart are changing.

Jesus boldly said, “I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven [Matthew 18:3].”  Which means that it is possible to become as they are: free and unbound to the past, pure in the eyes of God through Jesus’ blood. If Jesus has forgiven me, I can forgive myself and with time, the grip of regret will be broken.

“Who is a God like you, who pardons sin and forgives the transgression of the remnant of his inheritance? You do not stay angry forever but delight to show mercy [Micah 7:18].”

“Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom [2 Corinthians 3:17].”

If children are free, that’s what I want to be. Lord, grant all Your people an image of a spotless past, of a child freed to dance, of loosened chains and joy unspeakable, so we can know the depth of Your love and the liberty that accompanies it! I wonder how we will look in the Spirit once we have stepped into God’s forgiveness? Will we even recognize ourselves? But let the hands of the Potter create whatever will bring Him glory, taking the old and making the shiny new.

      “See, I am doing a new thing!
       Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?
       I am making a way in the desert
       and streams in the wasteland.”

      Isaiah 43:19

Please feel free to share your own testimonies and tales of freedom born! What has God freed you from? What don’t you recognize about yourself? What gives you cause to rejoice? What is He teaching you? Let us praise Him always!!!!!!!!