shame.guilt.humiliation.

When we do things that are wrong we want to hide it. We don't want anyone to know our shame, guilt, or the fact that we made a mistake. Sometimes we spend years of our life wallowing in our guilt. We drown in fear, fear of being found out. Fear that we won't receive forgiveness. Fear that everything we have done in our life will crumble under our feet.

The first story in the bible explains that perfectly in one scripture. Genesis 3:10 He said, "I heard the sound of You in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid myself." Adam didn't know that he was naked until he had sinned. But he was afraid and hid. We do the same in our own life. We hide so we aren't found out.

We cover things up with different behaviors, suppressing the issue further and further down. The downfall to that, God isn't going to let it go that easy. No matter how much your push things down, they are always going to find their way back to the surface. Once we finally face the problem that we have been hiding, we should feel completely elated.

BUT sometimes accepting forgiveness from someone that we have hurt is harder than confessing the issue. We hid in fear of what will happen. What we have to remember is that God sent Jesus to cover our shame, guilt, and humiliations. He is always going to accept us. It doesn't matter what we do, He is always going to love us.

There are those situations where we are forgiven continue to wallow in our shame. We want to have a pity party on ourselves. Know this, it's just as hard on the person who is giving the forgiveness as the one who is asking for it. If you feel the need to wallow, look in the mirror and say this.

Hey you screwed up. Stop sitting in the pig pin of stinking thinking and move on with your life. Yes, it won't be overnight for everything to go back to normal. But eventually it will. Hold on and move on.