Embracing the “Molly-me” God has destined for me is a constant challenge.
Many days it is like mountain climbing; clinging to a rock faced fortress of seeming impossibility.
Why do I say that?
Well, to be honest, I wear some handsome scars–constant reminders of battles won, and lost.
And, these things can impel me forward into God’s purpose and destiny for me–or, they can hinder me, mock me, and whisper sneering lies of…
“You’ll never get there… you’ll never be enough… you’re just too broken… to be of any good… to anyone!”
Catalyst to change
We all have experiences that scar us. I don’t think anyone would deny that pain and heartbreak are universal to everyone.
Nevertheless, I also believe we all want to live as an overcomer.
I think we all want to embrace change–to begin to see ourselves always moving forward–into the better things God has for us.
No matter what has happened to us in our past…
We all, want to become people who can run our own given race unhindered.
Transforming baggage into blessing
My believing that is why I believe, we ALL want to be our better selves, but without being tripped up by the baggage of our yesterdays.
Hebrews 12: 1 entreats us,
Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us…
Isn’t this our constant challenge?
So, how do we do this?
How do we redeem the past and still remain authentically ourselves?
Right here, is where God’s eternal word comes to our rescue!
The Message Bible puts it like this,
And when God is personally present, a living Spirit, that old, constricting legislation is recognized as obsolete. We’re free of it! All of us! Nothing between us and God, our faces shining with the brightness of his face. And so we are transfigured much like the Messiah, our lives gradually becoming brighter and more beautiful as God enters our lives and we become like him. 2 Corinthians 3: 18
Becoming Myself–yet UNHINDERED!
When I was pondering the conclusion to this series of posts two questions kept rolling around and around inside my heart.
First, “How does God’s transformation set us free to become everything we were always meant to be, to live a life unhindered?”
My short answer? It’s still a mystery to me! Simply because, when I look back and see all the mountains I have conquered, with God’s constant presence and grace, impelling me forward? I am painfully aware that it was not any of my DOING that accomplished this–it was my YIELDING, that got me where I am.
God’s Holy Spirit did the transforming.
My part, had always been, to trust Him (scared or not), and yield to whatever He chose to use in the transformation process.
Always meant to be MOLLY
I clearly remember the watershed moment I decided I needed a new nickname.
My name from birth had always been Martha–but I wanted to embrace all the changes that God had wrought in Martha 1.0–and to do that, I wanted to embrace those changes with a meaningful milepost of some kind.
So, I googled: Nicknames for Martha, and three immediately popped. Marta, Mattie, and Molly…
“Decision made!” for I had always dearly loved the name Molly.
And then, I suddenly wondered, “Had God always meant for me to come to this place? Had I fallen in love with the name Molly, long before I embraced (and learned) to love and embrace myself? Had I just fallen into what had been destined for me to find all along?”
Irregardless of your past
Now, for that second question that had been spinning around in my heart: “Why did Jesus tell the story of the Good Samaritan?”
I pondered this second question all week long, and I thought of all the times Jesus stopped what He was doing, or where He was going, to help or heal a desperate man, woman, or child.
Isn’t that what the Good Samaritan did?
Instead of “passing by on the other side of the road,” didn’t this Good Samaritan stop his journey, get down off his horse, and tend the wounded man that no one else wanted to be bothered with?
Having had a small amount of instruction on Jewish ceremonies, I appreciate the strict rules of cleansing and becoming clean, as well as the laborious process triggered by becoming unclean, that the Samaritan’s choices would trigger that day.
It was no small thing to touch a wounded and bloody man!
When you know this, you appreciate the real cost to this Samaritan to tend this wounded man.
Then I wondered, “Was it because he himself was considered an outcast by the very religious? Is that why he ignored the cost to himself, and instead, only focused on the needs of this wounded man?” And, “Isn’t that exactly what Jesus did for all of us?”
Living unhindered means knowing…
God always thinks redemptively.
What has happened to you may have been meant for your destruction by someone else–but it is your history, not your destiny!
A big step to moving forward is believing that.
Yes, it happened. And yes, wounds leave scars.
I do believe we are to live out our story honestly–the one that is authentically ours–but our message in choosing that path is this:
God redeems our scars so that we might be set free to help other wounded souls live redemptively also.
We are not trapped in our past!
(Don’t let anyone put that label on you.)
We run the race, that has been laid out for us, and we do it, unhindered, because walking in forgiveness sets us free! We KNOW, His love and grace transforms our history–as well as our destiny!
In freedom, we freely yield to His sovereign purpose, (the one He predestined for us,) then, joyfully we embrace this mystery-process of becoming ALL that we were always meant to be–used FOR His purpose and to HIS glory alone!
Perhaps that is the answer to every wound, and every, “Why?”
We are here for Him. All-in. Setting our face to the Sun of Righteousness like a flint: called by Him, transformed for Him, then, sent by Him.
Believing that? Changes everything!
Women With Destiny 