Casting Stones-The Fear of Our Past

I had taken this heartbreaking call a hundred times before from this sweet, beautiful sister in Christ.  She was sobbing on the phone; inconsolable and grief-stricken over a baby she had aborted nearly forty years ago.   

As in many of these stories, the man who was pressuring her into abortion left her a short time later.  All was not lost though.  She met a wonderful man and had two handsome boys; and, in the midst of this life as a young wife and mom, found the Savior of her soul.  All should be well, shouldn’t it?

A black cloud settled over this woman’s life, and the voices whispered:  “That little one you threw away…that was your daughter…your only daughter.”  “She would be ten now…sixteen…eighteen…twenty-one.”  She would be graduating high school…going to college…getting married…raising a family.”   Then would come the moments the loss, grief  and guilt were overwhelming, and I would get a call.

Each time I would listen as she would talk of the latest counseling, the new anti-depressant medications, the frequent dreams she had that tormented her of a beautiful little girl running in the yard playing, smiling up at her with pure love and adoration.  She tried everything.  She named her little girl and even had a memorial service for her through a group trying to help women overcome this kind of loss in their lives. She had her daughter’s name tattooed on her ankle, went to work at a Right to Life clinic in her town.

Why did this deep sorrow and regret keep welling up within her? 

 

This week we are talking about the “Fear of My Past Catching Up to Me.”  Our author Angie Smith entitled this chapter:  “The First Stone” and retold the story of the woman caught in adultery from the Gospel of John.   I wonder…did this woman think she deserved to be stoned?  You see, I think many of us believe we deserve to be “stoned’ and if someone else doesn’t stone us, we will stone ourselves.

This is what was going on with my lovely friend.  She had accepted God’s forgiveness for all of her sins…except this one.  She deserved punishment…She deserved a “stoning,” so she spent years not only tormenting herself, but trying to pay the price.  “If I do this one next thing, that will be enough.”  Except it was never enough. 

 

It can NEVER be enough…no matter what we do.  We can never do enough or punish ourselves enough to make up for what we have done.  We hear this truth sung in songs, preached in sermons, written in Christian books over and over:  “Christ is enough.”  But even as Christ followers we have to face an ugly truth:  We do not believe Christ’s sacrifice on the cross was enough for this one special sin of ours. This is the ONE that cannot be redeemed by His love and power.   So we add our works to His Great Work to try to find our own peace and when that doesn’t work, we begin the “stoning” of ourselves with regret, “if only,” guilt and even self-hatred. 

It is when we finally see Christ for Who He Is and what He has truly done, that the weight of our “special sins” fall off, and we can finally feel completely forgiven and redeemed.  I love this line in the Mercy Me song “Dear Younger Me”:  “…you were never meant to carry this beyond the cross.”  We were never meant to carry our sins..any of them…beyond the cross.  The song goes on to say these beautiful words:

Dear younger me
It’s not your fault
You were never meant carry this beyond the cross
You are holy
You are righteous
You are one of the redeemed
A brand new heart
You are free indeed

My friend?  I praise God that she finally came to see that her Lord, He had covered her sin once and for all.  SHE DID NOT HAVE TO DO ONE MORE THING!  She was holy!  She was righteous!  Her entire life redeemed!  She was finally free from the hold this sin had on her heart and mind.

He…our Jesus…IS truly enough!!!