I am not going to lie to you ladies; this will be the hardest thing I probably ever have to write about.\u00a0 Furthermore, when I saw that I had this part of the chapter to write about I instantly felt sick to my stomach.\u00a0 Then I prayed, and I know that God gave me this topic for a very special reason.\u00a0 This is His way of telling me, you are ready to share such an ugly part of your life with others because of the beauty you have let Me make of it.\u00a0 It is my prayer that as you read this you can get past the ugly my life once was and focus on the beautiful things that God has made from my messes in life.<\/p>\n
I can tell you this topic alone has brought so many tears to my eyes; probably enough to make an ocean-no joke.\u00a0 The past week I have been thinking to myself this part of the chapter is so personal, how can I possibly begin to share what God wants me to share with these women when I don\u2019t want to even share it with myself?\u00a0 Then I am reminded of Revelation 12:11 They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony.\u00a0 <\/i>There is power in our testimony ladies.\u00a0 There is hope from our hopeless situations, purity can come from our impurity, and the only reasoning for these miracles is because of the victory we have over Satan and the only reason for THAT is BECAUSE of the beautiful sacrifice of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.\u00a0 And that my friends, is how I can share what God so desperately wants you to hear today.<\/p>\n
When I read the words on page 89, my heart sank.\u00a0 \u201cIf you are reading this after the fact and are dealing with the guilt of the lost gift, do not be discouraged\u201d.\u00a0 The first time I read that it was about two years ago and I was very uncertain of how to not be discouraged.\u00a0 Second time around, and two years later when I read that sentence I was overwhelmed with thankfulness to God that I am no longer dealing with the guilt of the lost gift.\u00a0 What changed in two years you might be wondering?\u00a0 Honestly, I changed.\u00a0 Not because of anything I did, it was all because of what God did for me, on a cross.\u00a0 He died and shed HIS innocent blood and took my guilt and shame away with Him.\u00a0 Ladies, GOD DID THE SAME THING FOR YOU!\u00a0 In those two years, I accepted personally what HIS gift meant for me; the new life I have freely been given!\u00a0 My past did not change, but I chose to change the way I was living.\u00a0 I chose to start embracing God and when I did I was no longer discouraged.\u00a0 Have you done the same?<\/p>\n
If you are reading this after the fact, please listen closely.\u00a0 I understand the guilt, I understand waking up and feeling covered in shame.\u00a0 I understand the pain behind every single tear that falls from your eyes.\u00a0 I understand the pain of a broken heart.\u00a0 My heart was broken … correction, shattered when someone who I loved took my innocence from me without asking my permission.\u00a0 My natural response to this was not \u201cthis is all his fault for doing this to me\u201d, instead it was \u201cthis is all my fault for letting this happen\u201d.\u00a0 I suffered with extreme guilt and it led me to turn completely away from God.\u00a0 It was too late for me; I could no longer be a virgin when I got married like I had always dreamed of so I gave up.\u00a0 I believed and lived out this lie for two years, living in sin.<\/p>\n
One day the Lord placed A More Beautiful You by Johnny Diaz into my life.\u00a0 I was driving along; crying because of what I had just done, that I knew was so wrong, but I just did not know how to stop going back to that sin.\u00a0 Out of nowhere, seriously nowhere, my preprogrammed country station became a Christian radio station, K-love in my car.\u00a0 This is what I heard:<\/p>\n
So turn around you’re not too far
\nTo back away be who you are
\nTo change your path go another way
\nIt’s not too late, you can be saved
\nIf you feel depressed with past regrets
\nThe shameful nights hope to forget
\nCan disappear, they can all be washed away<\/p>\n
By the one who’s strong, can right your wrongs
\nCan rid your fears dry, all your tears
\nAnd change the way you look at this big world
\nHe will take your dark distorted view
\nAnd with His light, He will show you truth
\nAnd again you’ll see through the eyes of a little girl<\/p>\n
My heart ached to hear those lyrics over and over again, but my tears got in the way.\u00a0 I searched for that song for hours after hearing it and could not find it anywhere on the Internet.\u00a0 Those lyrics God used to start to mend my broken heart.\u00a0 But that was just the beginning of the mending.<\/p>\n
I could not get over the fact that even though I did not choose to lose my virginity, I CHOSE TO KEEP GIVING MYSELF AWAY TO A MAN AND THEN MEN WHO WERE NOT CONCERNED WITH MY HEART, JUST MY BODY.\u00a0 I fed into the lie that I needed this sin to be a part of my life.\u00a0 I fed into the lie that I was indeed damaged goods.\u00a0 These lies were so hard to get rid of.\u00a0 What lies do you believe about your past?\u00a0 What is tangling you up inside, making it seem impossible to get past the sins of your past?<\/p>\n
PLEASE TAKE A MINUTE TO LET THIS TRUTH RUN THROUGH YOUR SOUL: No matter what your past may look like, all God sees is beauty.\u00a0 Truly, if you are a child of God, if you have asked for his forgiveness for your mistakes, then you are living a beautiful new life!\u00a0 God does not see the shame or guilt that weighs so heavy on your heart-He just sees your heart for what he created it to be.\u00a0 His love is never out of reach no matter how far you have gotten yourself from accepting it.\u00a0 God has the luxury of forgetting our sins, and we have the luxury of being forgiven and able to live our life filled with God\u2019s love.\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Here is one of many examples of the beautiful things got has brought out of my ugly!\u00a0 My heart was almost healed. \u00a0There were still some things I had to confess to God.\u00a0 I walked into therapy with my pink journal in hand.\u00a0 Each page was filled with sentence after sentence of pain, hurt, shame, guilt, sin, and ugliness.\u00a0 I read aloud each page.\u00a0 I ripped out each page and put it in God\u2019s hands (literally my therapist drew God\u2019s hands on a piece of paper and sat it against the wall).\u00a0 As I was done with each page I prayed aloud to God.\u00a0 I wanted to see His hands so I looked up, at that very instant His hands (the paper) fell over everything I had written.\u00a0 That was the sign I needed that God loved me so much and that He took all of my shame and pain and guilt with Him where it belongs and left me with a brand new heart!\u00a0 I am pure, I am a virgin, and I am not damaged, thank you Jesus!<\/p>\n Let\u2019s Pray:\u00a0<\/strong> Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for your love.\u00a0 Thank you for forgiving us and transforming our ugly past into such a beautiful life with you!\u00a0 I pray that every single person reading this takes away the thing that you had planned for them to hear!\u00a0 I praise you for the opportunity I have been given to share my heart with others. \u00a0I pray your many blessings upon each woman who has felt, it was too late for her.\u00a0 I cannot put in words how thankful I am for healing our broken hearts!\u00a0 We love you so incredibly much!\u00a0 Amen.<\/p>\n Your Assignment:<\/strong>\u00a0 If you are holding anything in from you past, get rid of it.\u00a0 Please write it down and put it in God\u2019s hands.\u00a0 Let\u2019s replace that space with God\u2019s love!\u00a0 Let\u2019s be each other\u2019s support system when temptations come or when we are starting to go backwards.\u00a0 Please post below what God tells you when you are feeling bad for you past, I believe these words have the power to encourage and help each and every one of us!<\/p>\n Love you all so much!<\/p>\n Diane<\/p>\n _________________<\/p>\n For the \u201cLady In Waiting\u201d Bible Study, you will need the book, your Bible, pen or pencil, a highlighter and a quiet place. You can order the book right through our website by clicking the \u201csign-up here\u201d button at the top of our webpage; which is also where you can sign up to participate in this awesome bible study!<\/b><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I am not going to lie to you ladies; this will be the hardest thing I probably ever have to write about.\u00a0 Furthermore, when I saw that I had this part of the chapter to write about I instantly felt sick to my stomach.\u00a0 Then I prayed, and I know that God gave me this […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[20],"tags":[144,146,147,171,218,293,308,365,425,436,454,545,554,593,620,879],"class_list":["post-3706","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-singles","tag-bible","tag-bible-studies","tag-bible-study","tag-broken-heart","tag-christianity","tag-debby-jones","tag-diane-meyers","tag-faith","tag-girlfriends-coffee-hour","tag-god","tag-grace","tag-jackie-kendall","tag-jesus","tag-lady-in-waiting","tag-love","tag-relationships","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p39pHp-XM","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3706","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3706"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3706\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8299,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3706\/revisions\/8299"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}