God's Redemptive Story

We all have a “story.” The pages of our lives are filled with experiences, joys, sorrows, and sometimes deep regrets. Whatever the story, there is an even greater one, God’s redemptive story.

As you read one woman’s story (someone who has been a part of NEWIM for years), it is with a prayer that you won’t just hear it as her journey, but as the story of God’s redeeming love, his amazing grace, his power to heal, his complete forgiveness, and his restoration.

Over 40 years ago, I knew the Lord, had walked with him, had learned through his Word and my experiences of his great love and his character, and yet, in many ways, I was still living a life of bondage. So many areas led me to paths I would have never chosen, but were consequences of the bondage I was in. It came to a point where I could no longer stay in a situation, at the point of desperation, needing help, unable to handle life. The Lord rescued me and led me to a Christian program, and a very long season of healing and restoration. But in that process, I had to make the heartbreaking decision to leave my young sons in the custody of their father, resulting in a lifetime of regrets and pain, living with tremendous guilt and shame.

So many years later, the Lord has done amazing miracles of healing and restoration in my life, experiencing his grace, his compassion, and his transformation. He has so beautifully restored so many things, and I know daily what it is to walk with my Shepherd.

Yet even after all the years, an undercurrent of tormenting thoughts taunted me: “How could a mom abandon her sons, especially when they were hurting? What kind of mother would walk away from her hurting children? You destroyed their lives.”

The resulting guilt and shame and regret and self-hatred were a burden that crushed my spirit and so often destroyed any sense of joy and freedom I might experience. The problem is that these things were true. I did leave my sons, and their lives remain scarred by the consequences. Deep inside, I saw this inner dilemma as hopeless. In my despair, I cried out to the Lord, “I don’t know what to do.”

God’s answer.  The Cross of Christ. The ONLY answer. No amount of counseling or self-effort or anything else could free me from the burden of guilt and shame. Only what Jesus did on the Cross, only the grace and forgiveness God gave through the death of his Son, only this could set me free.

But God, so rich is he in his mercy...

A day came when the Lord so lovingly led me to see myself standing before the Cross, knowing that he was extending his forgiveness and grace. I saw the reality of the Cross,
not as a theological concept, nor a distant event, but as a reality, right in that moment.
I pictured Jesus hanging on the cross, looking at me as I stood before him. And he looked at me with eyes of love, paying the price so I could be free. I heard his words, “It is finished.”

In those moments, I knew I could either accept and receive God's full and complete grace and forgiveness and live in that freedom or choose to continue to carry the weight of that burden and miss the life he had for me. 

My mind argued, Yes, I believe in God's forgiveness; I’ve experienced so much of his freedom and cleansing, but this one thing is too big, too much. I don't deserve it.

That is true. 

And that is grace.

How could we ever think there are limits to God's forgiveness and grace? 

So, there I stood, standing before the Cross. Taking from inside the terrible, messy, heartbreaking burden of guilt I carried for my sons, and placing it at the foot of the Cross, believing that even that is cleansed by the blood of Jesus. And I left it there.

When Jesus said from the Cross, "It is finished," he meant it.

When God said, “Your sins are forgiven,” he meant it.

When the Holy Spirit through Paul said, "It is by grace you have been saved,” he meant it.

In those moments, I could do nothing but stand before him, arms raised in surrender and worship, tears of healing streaming down my face. The Lord had set me free.

In another beautiful moment, the Lord showed me his gaze focused on my sons, with the same love and power he has shown in my own life. And he showed me that I have still been carrying their pain. He so lovingly asked me to give that burden of their pain into his loving hands. If my carrying their pain would heal them, I would gladly do it. But it doesn’t. I can’t carry their pain, but he can. I can’t heal them, but he can. He looks on each of them, knowing them intimately, their hurts, their deepest needs, his work in their lives in ways that I may never see. But I can trust beyond a doubt that he is working. So I can leave them there, releasing them into his loving arms. And in that act of my surrender, the Lord has released me from the responsibility and burden of carrying their pain, a burden I was never meant to bear. I can rest in God’s love and comfort. 

Yes, I know there will always be a deep sadness. But no longer a crippling weight. And from a place of freedom, I can pray fervently for my sons. I can love others more deeply because I’ve experienced God's unconditional love. I can allow the Lord to use me as he wills, even the broken pieces.

When I am faced with reminders about the painful past, when thoughts and feelings draw me back to the shame and guilt, in those moments I can run to, cling to the Cross, and embrace the truths of God's grace. 

And now I look to the empty tomb, the miracle of Resurrection, not only his, but mine. That I could be resurrected from the living death of bondage and sin and given the joy of walking in newness of life, that same power that raised him from the dead is now at work in me. 

Is there something in your life that you still carry, a burden you have never released to the Lord? As we celebrate the beauty and reality of this Easter season, is the Lord inviting you to the Cross, to an act of surrendering into his hands the weight you have carried? Laying it, or them, at the foot of the Cross. Hearing his words, “It is finished.” The price has been paid. Your sins are forgiven. You no longer have to carry the weight of this burden. And the empty tomb says there is no power greater than the Resurrection.

The gift of Easter. The Lord invites us to walk in freedom and a resurrected life.