Letter to Guilt

Dear Mr Guilt,

I have noticed you hovering around dark corners in your top hat and trench coat smelling of tobacco and burnt coffee. I'm writing to request that you stop following me around.

The last time we came face to face it was about 4am and I hadn't slept all night. You tried so hard then, as you do each day, to drag my head down, my shoulders down, my gaze down with your brand of shame. You told me you were my conscious and you told me you were repentance.  You even had the audacity to tell me that you were necessary. I know now that you're not.

In 2 Corinthians 7:10 Paul told me that "godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death."

You are regret, you are worldly grief. You make me feel worthless and inferior. You take any sense of self-worth I may have and crumple it up in your cold dead fingers. You have a uniquely condescending way of doing this that I have become familiar with.

Every time I do something wrong, step out of line or find myself not strong enough to stop, I notice you standing there. You look down on me time after time with your high minded gaze, smirking through a haze of deadly poison.

You continue to put horrible thoughts in my head. You keep telling me that I'm not good enough and never will be. That I must be a failure for failing so many times. You convince me I am dark and evil and filled with hatred. You had me believing that could be the only reason I kept doing the same mistake again and again. You tell me that it wasn't a moment of weakness but that I'm weak and I can never be any better. You've tried to have these thoughts engraved in my heart since I was just a kid. The more I heard you, the more I thought that was all I could hear.

Fortunately it dawned on me that the more I wrote God's word in my heart, the less room I had for yours. I realised that the more I listened to the voice of my Saviour, the easier it became to ignore yours. He speaks love and you speak fear. Through grace I choose love.

Love is open and dancing in the middle of a cornfield under a bright blue sky and a sun that never burns.

Love tells me that I am worth the life of God's only Son, he paid that price for me. Love tells me I am a new creation in Christ. Love tells me that I am beloved of God, a child in whom he is well pleased. Love tells me that I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

Love is patient.

Love is kind

Love is never jealous, proud or rude.

Love knows to mend it's ways and forgives the wrongs that others do.

Love is sad about injustice but rejoices when the truth prevails.

Love protects, trusts, hopes, perseveres.

Love never fails.

I write to you with the authority of my father in heaven.

Not yours anymore,

evieroo