Honor

Today I finally got around to doing something that I should have done in September 2009 or at latest April 2011. What is it? Editing ALL of my blog posts. I started this particular blog (exported from another website) in 2005 when I was twenty-two years old, a lukewarm Christian and looking for love and affirmation in all of the wrong places. Due to immaturity and lack of discretion, I would often use my blog to vent about other people’s mistreatment of me – including details of my personal life that would have been better served in a private journal. I thought my bluntness was a virtue rather than a shortcoming so I never did anything about it. After I gave my heart to Christ in September of 2009, I began a new journey on this blog – documenting the things I am learning in Christ, my challenges as a woman who is pursuing the heart of God and addressing issues as the Holy Spirit will give me inspiration. Lately, my blog has also been a sounding board as I prepare for the release of my first book. The book itself is causing me to evaluate and re-evaluate myself, my life, my principles and my growth. The level of transparency in this book required me to ensure that I am not doing any harm to others by showing the world all of my cards. The book is suppose to be a help, not a source of harm.

The process of evaluating the book, therefore brought me here, to my blog, where a lot of the inspiration for the contents of this book was taken. I started evaluating what I have written over the past almost eight years online. I found that some of my entries were motivated by hatred and a sickening need to inflict harm on others. Those had to go. I found other entries that were motivated by despair and the need to pour out my anguish without a filter – I made those entries private.  I found still other entries that were brutally honest but could be of help to someone who understands me as a human being and may be encountering a similar situation in their lives – these entries have been password protected, to be shared only as my closest friends request.

The reason I took the time to do all of this editing on my past entries boils down to one thing – honor. In the past, I had cultivated the deplorable habit of dishonoring those who hurt me. Over the years, I have learned wisdom. At this stage in my life, it is critical for me to learn what it means to honor others. I am striving above all things to be a crown on my (future) husband’s head rather than a thorn in his side. I want to honor him. I want the things I put out for the world to see to cause his heart to swell with joy and happiness. I do not want to be a cause for reproach. I want to honor the friendships I still hold dear as well as the one that have passed away. And most importantly, I want to honor the God who has kept me from destruction even when I was at my filthiest. I cannot honor anyone, God or human being, if I leave my old entries in their unreformed state. They serve almost as a trophy, glorifying my previously unrepentant state of mind. No matter how much I caution people to be careful in reading my entries that are dated before September 2009 (my pre-Jesus days lol), it does not excuse me from ensuring that the content on my entire website glorifies and honors God.

I have done that to the best of my ability. I pray the old entries serve as a contrast to my readers concerning who I was without Christ and who I am becoming every day with His help. I leave them up so that others can see my journey. I also leave them up so that someone who is still struggling with their own identity in Christ will find hope for a  much more glorious future in God.

If you want God to change you, you have to surrender.