pj Holliday

I’ve often dealt with guilt over my poor and un-Christ like behavior. Recently, I had a pretty bad fight with my husband and said some of the most terrible things I’ve ever said to him. I’m pregnant right now and quite hormonal, though I know it’s not an excuse. We weren’t communicating in the heat of that moment and were hitting a wall when trying to explain our feelings over the disagreement. I resorted to cussing and name calling when I couldn’t reach him and he dug his heels in further.

The next morning, I was so ashamed of myself. Ashamed to the point of not wanting to pray. I felt God couldn’t possibly want to speak with me and I pulled back from Him, seeing him like my natural father who I felt I needed to perform well for in order to gain his affection. Throughout the day I felt rigid and uncomfortable, believing I was retracting back into old habits and God could never use me and certainly didn’t want to be around me.

I had a conversation with my mom about it. As usual, she poured out the grace of the gospel to me, which felt difficult to receive. When I went home, I watched Joseph Prince and read my devotional from Joyce Meyer who were both speaking on the same topic in their own unique ways; grace, grace, grace. I felt God was wanting me to understand something. The grace of God is never contingent upon our performing well. We’re going to stumble. The choice is to believe what he says about us, replacing viewpoints we’ve either placed on ourselves or others have placed on us.

I have felt lately that I’ve been in a wilderness season. Things have been more difficult and dry and it’s been a struggle to maintain the passion of my first love. I’ve tried to hang on to faith but the season I believe I was led into has made me weary. In the shower that same night, God was downloading his message of grace to me. I imagined Jesus in the wilderness and how he was tempted by the enemy over various things. Suddenly, I felt I understood what he was saying to me. “PJ, you are being tempted with shame. If you fall for this trap, you will be pulled from me and your time in the wilderness will be longer than it needs to be.” I was astonished by this. In Luke 4, Jesus was tempted with sins of riches, glory and power and my thoughts tend to go in that direction when thinking of temptation, but this was a temptation of the mind! Shame is a trap and a lie we have to refuse to believe, even when it feels more real than God’s truth.

I began speaking identity scriptures over myself (I am the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus…) and things of that nature. I was so grateful God helped me in the midst of the wilderness, spoke to my heart about his love for me that is never denied to us, even when we mistreat our spouses or anyone else for selfish reasons. This is clearly not a license to speak however we want to people, but it is motivation to pursue the identity we already have in him and become free from behavioral patterns we can’t seem to break away from.

I don’t want to lose the battle. I want to persist and grow spiritual muscle, and God makes it easy. He didn’t abandon me if my time shame and sorrow, he helped me choose to pull myself out. I nearly allowed the enemy to steal my free gift of grace which would have made me emptier for longer than I needed to feel that way. God rescued me from shame and we always win with him and live freer when we choose to believe his words are true.