i used to live in still water; a water body over which pond scum slowly accumulated, permeating the atmosphere with its disgusting smell and prohibiting the growth of new life. the lies i would tell were getting stuck in my throat, building up and choking out the flow of oxygen to my heart. the choices i was making were eroding away who i was meant to be; i was corroding and rusting. once in awhile i was able to break through the surface and come up for oxygen but i somehow always found myself slipping back under into the stagnant, chained to what was comfortable.
so when Jesus reminds me that He's making all things new, all things beautiful... that's not something i can just brush off, something i can just take lightly. He is redeeming- and will continue to redeem- my past. despite all the times i step outside of His will, He's right there to redirect me and woo me back to Him. granted, stepping out of His will carries grave consequences: due to decisions i have made, words i have said, things i have done, i'm still wrestling with healing and redemption today. but i haven't given up, because i know that it is possible. i've watched healing and redemption unfold in my life and in the beautiful lives of those around me. healing is a process, sometimes one that lasts a lifetime. and that's okay, because healing is the process of restoration; of making something new again.
i am no longer a body of stagnant water; once i reached the end of me, i could finally let Jesus come in and chip away at the walls i had so carefully dammed up, inviting me to be part of His wild rushing River, allowing His water to flow into me and from me; losing myself in His currents, washed clean by His waters.
while sometimes it's all too easy (and tempting) to fall back into old tendencies, i remember that murky pond much too well, and I refuse to let myself to sink into it again. reflecting back on the depths He's pulled me out from makes me so much more grateful that "the old has passed, the new has come; in Him, we are a new creation!"
He is the only one who gives meaning and life to us. He is the only one who can truly restore, can truly make new life come forth from black ashes, the charred remains of what we once thought to be great. friends, Jesus came not to condemn the world but to restore it. He is not finished with you yet. He will not leave you. you are a work in progress and He will be faithful to finish what He has started in you.
you're never in too deep for His love to reach.
