Tatoos removed

Yesterday was a good day……it was filled with a lot of “BUT MOMMY”, but overall it was a good day! We stayed busy! Last night we went to church and the Lord just about knocked me outta my seat with this message that he had given Dr.Rummage! It was awesome! Many Sundays I miss service because I’m in the nursery, and I always feel like something is missing. So I got my fix last night! WHEW!!!

Rummage was in Ezekiel which was ever so strange because I had just been in Ezekiel the day before doing some reading! Wait……..it wasn’t strange….it was confirmation! You know how the other day I wrote about wounds that were still open in my heart by something someone had done……..even though I’m quite sure they don’t ever think about it, I had let it eat me up BIG TIME? Well, I truly did lay that burden down at the cross for the final time…….and ya’ll I have surely been free these past few days from it. I mean….God has just removed that thought process from me and has allowed me to walk freely with Him again!

So in Ezekiel, through God speaking, I came to realize something huge. The basic theme of Ezekiel is Judgement and Hope. We can expect God to judge us when we sin………BUT we can expect to experience the HOPE of God, HIS grace and forgiveness when we TURN. I don’t believe in this “God is going to punish you” message. For so many years of my life I’ve walked around blaming all the bad things going on in my life due to my sin, of getting pregnant before I was married. And I even had a person tell me that yes, God loves me but He is going to punish my sins………devastating words to a girl who had already punished herself enough! At that point in my life I created a “label” or a tattoo on my life, that of being one who had sinned and everyone knew about it!!

But I guess I’ve always been looking for the scripture to back up my feelings that God does forgive us when we truly turn from our sins and we will begin to experience HIS grace through forgiveness if we will let him. When we do not turn from our sins, when we keep walking on the same path…….that is where we will find our punishment or our judgement. Read these verses carefully, let them sink in…….Ezekiel 36:25-27 “I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.”

OH how I just LOVE the image of God sprinkling CLEAN water on me! And I love how it says, HE WILL SPRINKLE IT AND YOU WILL BE CLEAN. Once we confess our sins to him and we truly turn away from them……..we are not walking in darkness anymore and we must truly believe that He will put a new spirit in our hearts. OH AND I LOVE how it says, “I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh”. What a powerful thought!!! BUT, here’s the key……..just like when you have a tattoo removed…it’s very painful. And the tattoo’s that we have placed on our own lives can sometimes be very painful to be removed as well. Just like with me and my big tattoo, it took almost five years……..FIVE YEARS, for me to finally be made clean again. Did I turn it over MANY TIMES? YES. But, it was a deep wound. And then I think of this situation…..I turned it over, I turned from MY SIN, and I was ok…….it didn’t take five years!! So what I’m getting at, is sometimes the wounds are deeper than we know…..and it may take more time to be made completely clean. There may be many steps we have to take such as seeking forgiveness, making things right with someone or it may be as simple as what it took for me……laying it down at the cross for the FINAL time.

Once we have been delivered we MUST walk in the truth, we cannot allow our sins to haunt us, that’s exactly what Satan would love more than anything. For him to keep winning even though we layed it down. Oh it’s so good to be refreshed this morning…….to remember God’s sweet promises to me. To know that I will always face temptation, but I am protected, I am bought by the blood of the lamb.

So guess what? Today we are going to look at official house #1. I’ve looked at a MILLION online and have driven through so many neighborhoods, but today we will actually go inside of one! =) I’m excited, I’m nervous but oh my…….I’m ready!!! I just know that God is going to direct us into the house that HE has for us. The girls all slept in very late this morning…….one benefit of keeping the up late last night for church! So I feel awesome today! We went to the Y yesterday, but the wait was awful……….almost thirty minutes just to drop the girl’s off. I saw a my friend there and she was like, I waited forty-five minutes to drop them off, JUST got into my exercise class and they came and got me b/c her son had an accident!!! I felt so bad for her! Isn’t that the way it ALWAYS is!!!

Well, I’d better go……..I hope I made sense this morning! You just never know! Have a blessed day!!