My dad, Robert, had a gifted mind and was an exceptional speaker. I remember one of his sermons he gave when I was a little girl. It was about a man who lived in a castle. He never left the castle for fear of the monster who lived outside its gates. One day he was roaming through the corridors of the castle and he found a staircase that led to the tower. He followed the stairs until he found a little room and within that room, he found a mirror. Gazing into the mirror, he saw his reflection…HE WAS THE MONSTER!

That sermon scared the daylights out of me as a child. Now, looking back, I realize that my dad too was hiding from a monster. All his life he fought against the evil that tried to consume him. This week marks the 30^th anniversary of his death; when his monster finally got the better of him and took his life. It saddens me that I was so young and that I couldn’t understand his pain during those years, but God did bless me with a little treasure. Before his death, dad had returned to school to work on his master’s degree and he wrote me a letter. He told me that God had forced him to remember everything he had done to cause me pain. “I hope you will find much joy in this life, and that God will reveal his son to you in even a far greater way than I have known him. I think of you faithfully and with gratitude I pray for you each day.” Those words bring tears to my eyes and a great fire to my soul! My dad, who loved God but also cursed him in his moments of great despair, prayed for me! He was the most gifted man I have ever know; he could understand such complexities of God’s word. Yet, in his life, his personal walk, Satan was successful at keeping him chained. Satan was able to keep him shackled in his pain and his willful desires.

30 years! Wow! A lifetime—truly, as I was only 23 when my dad died. But when I think of him now, having out lived him already by two years, I feel such pity and sadness. My anger is gone. I truly believe, despite everything, that he is walking the streets of gold. I used to tell people that he was in heaven digging ditches, paying his penance. Now, I imagine him sitting with Paul discussing the many mysteries of Christ or fishing with the Apostle Peter. How can I imagine him in paradise, you might ask, after all the terrible things he did? GRACE! Romans 3:22-23, “…the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus…” Ephesians, 2:8-9, “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God,not a result of works, so that no one may boast.”

We, as believers in Christ, are called to live our lives for him. We are to take up our crosses and follow him. We are not told, follow me and you will live a perfect life. And thankfully, we are not told that if we mess up, God will toss us aside, and choose another, more perfect person to take our place. When we ask Jesus into our hearts, we are given a GIFT of forgiveness. A gift, not something we can earn or work towards…but the FREE, irrevocable gift of salvation and forgiveness. David wrote in Psalm 103, “The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love. He will not always accuse, nor will he harbor his anger forever; he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.”

So dear friend, don’t let the mistakes of your past, come between you and the God who loves you. He is compassionate and gracious. He is slow to anger and abounding in love. His will, his only desire, is for you to turn to him and seek his face, to accept his free gift of salvation and love. I pray today, that you will hear that still and small voice that is whispering to your heart and that you will open the door and accept him in.

If you’d like to know more about his immeasurable grace and forgiveness, please follow this link, https://stepstopeace.org/