The Grace of a Past

While chatting with someone tonight, I was once again brought face to face with a remnant of my past.
Those come in many ways. A scent. A laugh. A sudden repeated line. A shared memory. An image. A word. A name. An action. Good memories. And bad memories.

I'm not going to be ambiguous for once...and I'm going to talk pretty freely. So those of you that hate that in me, go for a nice long ramble onto someone else's blog. ;) There, warning over.

Tonight's was a flash back from my past. Someone that's been banned from talking to me because of my past as a cutter. I completely understand why that parent has done what they have done.
I also would not have done what that parent has done - and don't judge my youth or my lack of actual parenthood (begging my four adoptive children to forgive me at this point! :)) in response.
My mother instinct will want to shelter and protect my children from harm - and I will. But I will not hide from them that there are bad, sad things in this world - pain and tears. I never want my children to go through what my past has been. But I will not hide from them - or them from - people who have been there. You know why? Because I know God grows through pain. He uses it - every part of it - to draw us closer to Him. And because God uses the pain of others for us to identify with, reach out to, try to heal and help, and to grow in. As we share in the sufferings of our brothers and sisters in Christ - be they good or ill - then we are sharing in the sufferings of Christ.

Nope, not saying He doesn't use joy. Oh boy, has He ever given me the best piece in a year and a half tonight! Painless joy! But if it hadn't been for the pain in that year and a half, I would never have valued that joy half as much as I do tonight. It is only when you go through the toil to find the one diamond in the diamond mine, that you really value it. Not so much the one that you find lying by the roadside and take home. A man values a woman's heart twice as much if he has fought for her, than if he can pick her up off an easy market. A woman values the man that has higher standards twice as much as she does the man that falls easily to her wiles.

Some people are trapped in high standards. It's good to hold to high standards. If you impose them on the rest of the world, you end up being too good to live in it. There are people to this day who will not talk to me because of my past. My friend said that I should not be hated for my past, because who I am today is very different. She is right in a way. And yet, not in another.

I have no right to be cleared of anything held against me. Because I was that person. And I still am that person. But I do have a right of cleansing. And that is claimed through the blood of Jesus Christ, my one and Only Blessed Redeemer! Through His blood I am cleansed. By His grace, He has cleared me twice before - including to one family that I have now found true love and grace towards me there. If He wants me cleared, He will clear me again.

It's all well with me. All clear. All good. They're right to run from me. From the sin that is in everyone in the world. From the darkness. But in doing so, they're missing out on the beauty of the light as it clears the darkness. And as someone that is not only being worked in, but is being used to help work in others - when I see that darkness open and Light start to flood in - there is no greater joy. No greater Beauty. No greater Delight than the Son of God reclaiming His own.

I want to thank those that never ran. That faced the darkness inside me and stayed and prayed and fought with hell. Each of you, used in turn.
Jay. Kyle. Brendan. Nick. Braden. Keifer.
Rachel. Laurale. Sarah S and Sarah N. Kiehl. Rachel. Grace. Mother G. Mrs. L-G.

And, unaware that you fought but that did so much, or that were aware and helped when they could:
Mother. Calleigh. Bethany. Rebekah. Alexis. Aimee. Taylor W. Stephanie and Katherine. Ashley. Lindsey. Adrienne. Kyle. Anjelica. Miles. Brandyce. Zac. Jake. Jess. Holly. Casey. Katie. Laura Q. Rob K. Others that have reached out from time to time and that I cannot recall to name - I apologise.

God has been so good to me in all of you. Your hearts and hands are open. Please - please. Pray God to keep them so!

Grace. God's grace. Extended to man and exemplified in man. What beauty and wonder to behold! Praise the Lord. :)

In Christ,
~Mademoiselle Siân