Finding the Key

“Come inside! There’s a surprise for you!”

I look up from my journal to see Jenn peering around the door of our room.

This month, though beautiful and full of so much joy, started out quite different. At the beginning of this month I found myself standing face to face with some of my biggest mistakes, overwhelmed by shame and fear I felt chained to. These feelings weren’t brought on from anyone on my squad, nor our ministry or leadership team – quite the contrary actually. Every single one of these people placed in my life have so consistently loved me so well and endlessly spoken so much truth and grace into the lies of my past. But regardless of all of this love surrounding me, I didn’t know how to accept or truly believe that it was mine.

I knew, fundamentally anyways, that I was forgiven. In fact, forgiveness is what I ended up preaching my first sermon over. It’s something I’ve grown so extremely passionate about and LOVE sharing with others. But somewhere, in the depths of my heart, something still was holding tight to the idea that somehow, at some point, some mistake I had made, some choice I had chosen, was too much, too big to be forgiven. Somewhere in there, my heart was holding on to the lie that while forgiveness was beautiful, there’s no way that it could cover me too.

But that’s not how my God works. There’s no levels of sin and no shame from love. He wasn’t going to let me walk through another month believing these lies, and little did I know, He already had a plan in the works to shatter them like glass.

I reached for the handle of the livingroom door and pushed it open to see our host’s wife, Abigail, reaching into a bag and then looking up and smiling at me giddily. She has such a motherly way about her that it instantly filled my heart with warmth.

I look around at my team and notice that they’re all sporting new bracelets, each with their names engraved along a gold bar. The colors of the beads, differing with each person, immediately take me back to a VBS program I once attended when I was younger. We used to make these bracelets there, each bead a different color, each bead representing something different. There was green for growth. Black for sin. Red for the blood of Jesus. Clear for forgiveness. And probably a few other colors mixed in in between.
A thought pushes it’s way through my daydream and takes hold of me. “Now, look down, and see yourself the way I see you.”
Abigail grabs my hand and places the bracelet in it. As my fingers begin to uncurl from around the beads I practically lose my breath.
They’re clear. All of them. All of them but these two tiny red ones right in the center of the rest.
I knew immediately what He was trying to tell me.
I’m forgiven, washed clean. All of me. All my sins, forever – because the blood of Jesus is inside me.

That’s all it takes, the blood. He already paid it all. The ultimate sacrifice, the ultimate price. And because of it, I’m forgiven, I’m free from all of these chains that once bound me.

And I have this gorgeous token of His love to carry with me every day to remind me of His truth. Forgiveness is for you, and forgiveness is for me, too. Forgiveness is the key, to it all. The key to a wildly different, wildly beautiful life. One where shame and condemnation is no longer yours to carry. One where love doesn’t come with conditions. One where your battles have already been fought and won for you. One where you are uniquely and wholly loved and chosen.

Romans 4:7 says “How joyful are those whose lawless acts are forgiven and whose sins are covered!”

Because that’s what forgiveness does. It takes away the weight of this life, and makes room for a joy greater than anything you’ve ever known.

A joy that will change you and overflow out of you and inspire you to invest into, every aspect of your life. Into your relationships, into your work, into others, into the work of the Kingdom. Not so that you can earn the favor of God, but in celebration of the beauty in that you already have it.