No matter how far you’ve gone down a wrong road... turn back! -Turkish proverb

"No matter how deep the stain of your sins, I can remove it. I can make you as clean as freshly fallen snow. Even if you are stained as red as crimson, I can make you as white as wool." -Isaiah 1:18

It’s times like these I feel that terrible heaviness
Pushing me, holding me down, almost suffocating me
Like I am running with a snowsuit made of lead.
With each step I take I become worn out and think,

"If only I had a rock to cling to, to rest on, to pull me out of this place..."

Each piece of that heavy lead snowsuit is a piece of unforgiven sin in my life.
Then God’s still small voice speaks to me
Whispering that he is that rock-
Able to forgive because he is pure love.

"So you think you’ve really messed everything up this time, eh?" says the heavenly father gently,
"You believe that there’s no chance of anything being right again, don’t you?" he lovingly asks.

And then he asks me to think about how:

Adam and Eve must have felt when they succumbed to temptation
By eating the fruit;

King David must have felt after letting his temptation take over
When he slept with a woman who was already married to one of his soldiers;

Moses must have felt
When he descended Mount Sinai to find the people of Israel worshipping an idol;

Mary Magdalene must have felt when she fell into bed after bed,
Playing the prostitute;

Joseph’s brothers must have felt when they sold him into slavery
Then saw him again years later as a Ruler of a mighty country;

Judas must have felt when he betrayed Jesus with a kiss on the cheek;

And the list goes on and on...

But God always forgives people over and over again

When they admit they can’t do it alone, they’ve screwed up-and need a rock to hold on to.

Jesus be that rock in my life today and always.

Check out: Colossians 3:13, 1 John 1:8-10, Matthew 6:14-15

(Jenn Cote-Penrose is 18 and attends McMaster University in Hamilton.)