Flashback Fridays

Today's flashback is from March 17, 2011.  I pre-selected it after writing yesterday's post about battling with mistakes from my past.  This was entitled Battling Back the Ghosts.  The thing I love the most is that only this morning did I discover that the scripture I used to close yesterday's post was the same scripture I used to close this post a year and a half ago.  God is so faithful to use His word - if that isn't just more evidence that He is the same yesterday, today and forever (Heb. 13:8)...

I'm being called. Into a role. Into a brand new frontier. It's my dream. But I believe it's also my calling. You may be one of the many women out there being called to do something different. Something way outside your comfort zone. To take a BIG step of faith. Of course there are obstacles. But there is one big obstacle that I have, that you may have too, that should not be an obstacle. There are real obstacles and then there are self-imposed obstacles. We self-sabotage our dreams. That is a big self-made obstacle.

Our past. Previous actions. Misdeeds. Inappropriate behavior. Missteps. What will people say if I do this new thing KNOWING what I used to do. What I used to be.

That's where I'm at right now. My new course, my calling, is something in the faith-based arena. However, I am not pristine. I am not untainted. I am not without regret over certain past behavior. And it haunts me, only now, as I'm being called to a new place. To a higher calling.

I believe that women, in particular, are stymied, stunted, diverted from the best and highest course for their life because of apprehension over "what will they think?" I am determined NOT to let that stop me.  Look around you. So many people that are doing great things, life changing things, amazingly phenomenal things, have a history. Have dealt with a past haunting them. If you look at their history, it would not lend itself to the current miraculous place that they are in now. In fact, if Vegas were taking odds, it wouldn't take these odds.

What if those people, those who have been game changes, event makers, faith shakers, had let those odds, that past, a haunting, those questions about what people would think, stop them??? What if Peter had said, I'm sorry, I can't be the Rock upon which Christ will build His church because what if I bump into someone who saw me the night I denied Him? What will they think of me? They would never follow me. A man of weak faith. Wouldn't they question if there's any substance or value to what I say? In fact, I might end up just being a hindrance to the building and spreading of Christianity. Yet he somehow, and I don't know how, managed to move past that. The cloud of worry over what people's perception would be. He got over the regret and LET GOD work wonders - miracles we're still reading about thousands of years later.

Don't let something you've done stop you from being who God designed you to be.

Don't let your calling go unanswered because of fear over what people might think.

If anything your testimony will reach those who otherwise would have gone unreached because your faith would have felt inaccessible. God has used adulterers and murderers and faith-deniers to rock the world.

And sweet sister, you are pristine, clean, pure before our Father and Savior.

Jeremiah 29:11 - "For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."

Psalm 103:11 - For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.

Romans 8 - Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free...And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose...What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who then is the one who condemns? No one.