It starts small… maybe one sin creeps in. You think it’s a harmless, a little nothing that no one even notices. You find every excuse for why it’s different and why your heart is in the right place, so it’s ok to just keep sinning as long as no one gets hurt… after all, you’ve had a hard day, a hard week, a hard life! God would understand.
Before you know it, you’ve lost yourself. You don’t even know who you are anymore. The darkness sucked you in and consumed you. You feel like you are in too deep and don’t know how to get back out to the way you were - when things were more simple. You can’t even remember how it all started or where everything went wrong. Everything is falling apart, and the first one we want to blame is God.
It’s a cycle. When everything is going wrong in our life, we blame God. We blame God when we get pregnant outside of marriage when (in most cases) we chose to have sex. We blame God for our speeding ticket when we were the ones choosing to speed. We blame God for our relationship falling apart, when He gave us all the warning signs not to enter into it.
Sin has a way of creeping in and wrecking everything along the way. But it’s never too late to turn things around. You’re never in too deep that God’s not there reaching in to pull you out… waiting for you to grab His mercy and goodness. He doesn’t condemn or shame you.
“He doesn’t treat us as our sins deserve, nor pay us back in full for our wrongs. As high as heaven is over the earth, so strong is His love to those who fear him. And as far as sunrise is from sunset, He has separated us from our sins.”
- Psalm 103 -
In the story of the prodigal son that Jesus told, the son took all his dad’s money and ran away with it, spending it all on crazy stuff until he had literally nothing to his name. He was so ashamed of himself but decided to be brave and go back to his dad to maybe work for him as a servant. He was shocked when, even from a long way off, his father ran to him, gave him a giant hug and smothered him with kisses. Then, his father threw him a giant party celebrating that his son was finally home.
The father didn’t go through the list of what all he did wrong. He was just so happy his son was back home where he belonged. That’s all he cared about. That’s what God is waiting for with us - for us to just come back home.
There may be someone reading this today that feels like the prodigal son. You feel like what may have started innocently has turned into something bigger, and you don’t even know where to turn to. I just want you to know that God is there, wanting to pull you out, to help you up, to get you back on your feet. He will take care of the clean-up that needs to happen. He will help you. Just reach out and grab a hold of his mercy and grace. Just give Him back your heart.
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MEET THE AUTHOR
Amy Ford is the co-founder of Embrace Grace, Inc., inspiring the church to provide emotional, practical and spiritual support for single young girls who find themselves with an unplanned pregnancy. Once in that situation herself, she has a heart for these broken-hearted girls and wants to share the hope of Jesus. Amy lives in Arlington, Texas with her husband and children. For more information, visit amyford.com.
WHO WE ARE
The Life of a Single Mom is a national, faith-based, nonprofit that exists to see that no single mom walks alone. To date, the organization has worked with hundreds of churches to start a single mom’s support group in cities throughout the U.S. and beyond, as well as having served hundreds of thousands of single mothers with a variety of programs. Offering a large array of books, curriculum, training materials, online instructional videos, podcasts, newsletters, life skills education, and more, TLSM is one of the largest single mom organizations in the U.S. The robust selection of single mom programs focus on empowering single moms to grow spiritually, emotionally, financially, and parentally through Single Mom University, Single Moms Across America, the National TLSM Single Moms Conference, boot camps, and a variety of other programs. For more information, visit thelifeofasinglemom.com.
