Whoa…..

Ok, I’m going to be real honest here.

I’m thinking to myself this morning: “Tim (my oldest son) is going into the Navy–can’t they teach him to drive???”

Yep.  Here’s another one of my “Mom of the Year” awards.

I know it’s my responsibility.  There is no one else to teach him.  This job falls squarely on my shoulders.  But good gracious, this has been—no, this IS no easy walk in the park!

The boy will be the first to admit to you, he’s not very good at it.  At all.  Oh, it’s not that he’s not trying.  He is.  HE IS!!!  But it just is NOT coming to him naturally like it did to Keli, and like it is to Mark.  (Yes, I’ve had Mark behind the wheel already–in parking lots–and I’m a lot more comfortable with him driving then with Tim.)

Now, let me back this post up by saying that Tim not taking to driving like a fish takes to water is NOT to say that he is not amazing.  I hope you could follow that sentence, I barely can myself.  He is amazing.  He is accomplishing some pretty incredible stuff lately.  You can read some of that stuff in my last post, HERE. (Failures and God’s Love)   I’m in awe of what he is accomplishing right now; in awe of what God is doing in His life as he finishes up his last year of high school and flies toward his future.

But driving.  Wow.

Last night I made myself let him drive home from the Poquoson Library.  He did great.  Until we hit Wolf Trap road.  Then, all of a sudden, staying between the two painted lines became a problem.  A huge problem.  But at least it was a problem on Wolf Trap and not Highway 17!  However, we made it home, and he turned to me and said “Yes!”, with a whole bunch of pride.  Good pride.  And right then and there I once again resolved that the only way he is going to learn is if I make myself let him drive each and every chance he gets.

Good grief, I love my crew.  Even on the harrowing roads of Seaford (those who live here or attend church here will understand that overstatement), I love my crew.

But I didn’t always.

Yes, that’s right.  You read that right.  There was a time that I didn’t love them.  Well, let me put it another way.  I loved them, but I didn’t know how to love them.  Not really.  Not well.  Oh, I wanted to.  It was one of my deepest desires.  But I just couldn’t get there.  I’d look around at other mom’s and try to “love” the way that they did, but my heart was cold.  Yes, I loved them, but I didn’t LOVE them, not with the love that is described in scripture.  Not with that all-encompassing, unconditional love any mother is supposed to have for their child.

Parenting did not come naturally to me.  At all.  The stories are ugly.  I’ll spare you the details.  But there were many times I wanted to bail.  And, quite possibly if you are a mom reading this, there may have been moments in your parenting that you have wanted to bail.  Badly.  I escaped in so many ways, secret alcoholism being just one of my many routes of escape.  I wanted to love them, I really did.  And I did love them—-but I didn’t know how to show it.  I didn’t know how to express it.  I didn’t know how to be the mother they needed me to be.

But, a few years ago, I hit a wall.  I’ve spoken about that wall before on here in terms of needing to know if God was real, if Scripture was truth and if what we were doing in ministry was real or was just providing people with some sort of religious “crutch” instead of teaching them to face real life head-on.

But I don’t think I’ve shared how, in hitting that wall, I came to a decision that I wanted to know how to love my family.  And love them well.

I didn’t need parenting classes.  I didn’t need a “self-help” book on parenting (which I loathe).  I didn’t need to “just try harder”.

What I did need was for my eyes to be open to the fact that God was pursuing me.  Relentlessly.  And as I slowly came to recognize that He was real, that scripture was truth, and that this enormous, creator God loved me (me!) so much that He sent His son to die for me–for the forgiveness of my many sins–only then did I really start to grasp what love was.  And it was the melting of my stone cold heart and the replacing of it with a heart of flesh (Ezekial 36:26) that began to create in me a new, different kind of love for my crew.  A lasting, unconditional love.

Little did I know, though, what He was preparing me for.  I never saw single parenting coming–not in a million, trillion years.

Yet here I am.

And it is tough.  My deepest respect to each and every single parent out there.  Because there is no one else to help you love your child when they mess up, badly.  There is no one else to help you celebrate the really good times.  There is no one else to talk over both simple and difficult parenting decisions with.  There is no one else to “take a turn” when you just don’t think you can go another step.  And it’s a very lonely place to be.

But.

But for the grace of God.  It is only by His grace that I am able to love and parent at all.  And that goes for all of us, whether we are single or married.  Parenting is not for cowards.  It’s heart-stopping when it’s 2 am in the morning and you don’t know where your child is.  It’s shocking (though greatly relieving) when your child comes home from a friend’s house and tells you they are home early because the rest of the people there started to smoke some weed.  It’s heartbreaking to walk your child through the very real pain of hurtful words thrown like stones, or the very real grief of missing their other parent.  It’s devastating when they don’t want to go to church (though we’ve seen some real change around here in that area, for which I am grateful)  And it’s infuriating when you see your child bring home F’s when you know they are capable of A’s and B’s.

No.  Parenting is not for cowards.  Plus, you have to teach them to DRIVE.

But God’s grace covers even this thing called parenting.  I don’t know how, it just does.

So, this Mother’s Day I will be celebrating.  Not the fact that I’m a mother.  But the fact that I have a God who loves my children through me.  I love them imperfectly.  I love them, but as a sinful, fallen creature.  But God?  He somehow allows this imperfect, selfish, sinful mom the joy and the privilege of raising 4 amazing, resilient, funny, kids.  And a great dog.  And a couple of lizards.  Grand-lizards, actually..they belong to my girl.

I will worship Sunday morning with my crew and with my church family.  I will enjoy watching the baby dedications and remember when my crew was that tiny.  I will probably take a nap, having spent the entire day Saturday with Tim, chaperoning the York High Chorus Competition trip to King’s Dominion.  And I will spend time laughing and enjoying my crew…..and marveling at the grace of God that allows me to love such amazing people.

(Below is a very brief video of me and my mom.  She died very young of breast cancer.  I don’t have a lot of pictures of her, and very few pictures of her and I together.  But out of the blue one day, her brother sent me this snippet of a video of she and I together when I was just a baby.  I like to post it on Mother’s Day.  There is much I could say about my mom– who she was, about her extreme resiliency, about the things that I’m grateful she passed down to me.  But I can’t without being a wreck, for so many reasons.  So instead, I post this video, in memory of her.  I often wonder if she sees, if she knows.  If she is proud.  I look forward to the day when I can go home and see her again.

 

It’s been a strange 2-3 weeks.

And insanely busy, I might add.

I know some of you have wondered where I’ve disappeared to.  You’ve sent me Facebook messages or emails.  Thank you so much.  You are so kind to check on me, to encourage me.  Your words are very treasured!

I’ve fought a hard battle the last few weeks.  I share that with you, because maybe it’s a battle that you find yourself fighting at times, too.  It’s a battle of feeling like a failure.  No, not feeling like a failure.  Being a failure.   At looking at your life and seeing the wrong, seeing the ugly, seeing the things that disgust me about myself.  And as a result, sinking into a kind of despair that creates doubts about God and the truth of scripture.  Not necessarily that there is or isn’t a God, but doubts of how that God could possibly love someone as depraved as I find myself to be.

It’s not a good place to be.

And, in the midst of it, I found myself doubting scriptures truth, because it was easier to doubt that scripture was true than to do the real work necessary to fight the battle back to what I know must be truth.

I don’t know about you, but sometimes it is so incredibly difficult to think that the God of the universe could love me.  Me!  When He knows my every thought.  He knows everything I have ever done, my entire life.  He knows my motives, my sins, my daily failings!  How could God–WHY would God love such an ugly creature as myself?  One that fails her family, her friends, her children–and fails God Himself, time and time and time again?

This morning I returned to Romans 8.  Quite frankly, I don’t visit that chapter often, simply because its theological fullness intimidates me.  It is packed so tightly.  There is much in there.  I believe it is John Piper who refers to it as “The Greatest Chapter in the Bible”.  That’s great for him, but he’s a LOT smarter than I am.

But I found these verses in Chapter 8 that I just couldn’t let go of this morning.  That I spent much time writing about this morning.

Romans 8:35-39

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

You see, I’ve been stuck on Psalm 51:10 for quite awhile now, which states:

Create in me a clean heart, O God,
and renew a right spirit within me.

I have prayed this verse dozens and dozens of times over the last 3 weeks.  You see, I don’t want to have an unclean heart.  I don’t want to have a wrong spirit.  But that’s all I’ve been able to see–my failures.  And though I prayed these words right along with the Psalmist, I just could not see how God would even want to answer them in my life.  I didn’t see how He could, because I know that no sooner do I repent of some wrongdoing, that I turn around and fail all over again.  The cycle never ends.  How could God love such a person?

But then, after reading an article that had the Romans 8 passage in it, I found myself pouring over those verses–verses 35-39.  Searching for an exception.  Looking for the one thing that would say “Yes, but this doesn’t apply to you because you have failed too many times.”

Guess what……it’s not there.

It’s not there.

No where in Romans 8:35-39 does it say that my repeated failings as a parent, as a friend, as a church member, as a follower of Christ will separate me from His love.  How can that be?  How can that be?  I don’t understand it.  Because when I look at myself, I see someone very unloveable.  Very unloveable.  Yet these words, that must be truth, say that nothing–not even my failures–will separate me from His love.  And even more than that—all these other things listed will not as well:  tribulation, distress, things present, things to come (and, though it doesn’t say it, I am assuming today that it means things past as well)—none of these things will separate me–or you–from the love of God.

I don’t understand it.  I don’t deserve it.  And it’s too big for me to even know how to be grateful enough for it.

So I’ve printed up these words and have taped them to my wall above my work desk, along with other important scriptures that I so easily forget.  To remind me that God loves me.  No, it doesn’t change my faults or my failings.  It doesn’t change my daily need to repent.  It doesn’t change how much I hate how often I fail.  But it does remind me that even my ugliness doesn’t separate me from God’s love.  Nor any of the other things listed in Romans 8:35-39.

Post Choir Update:  9:14 pm Wednesday night—-Driving home, I was struck, out of the blue, by the concept of forgiveness.  What a strange entity it is.  What a very difficult thing it is to understand.  That God would forgive us.  Completely.  Utterly.  In spite of our failings.  No, this does not give us a license to sin.  In fact, it’s the exact opposite.  It should spur us on to greater obedience.  To a greater desire to glorify Him in all that we do and say.  And then I got to thinking about our forgiveness of each other.  How imperfectly we forgive, but how beautiful it is when we do.  And how incredibly meaningful it is, to know you are forgiven, when you have wrongfully hurt someone, whether purposefully or inadvertently.  When someone grants forgiveness to us, it is a precious gift. It is a selfless gift.  It is undeserved, yet given out of grace and mercy.  And when we receive that gift of forgiveness from someone, we mirror the act of receiving the gift of forgiveness from God our Father.  The same is true, when we extend the gift of forgiveness to one who has wronged us.  Tonight, I am especially grateful for God’s willingness to forgive me.  Over and over again.  And for the gift of forgiveness given to me from others.  Because it is a picture of salvation. It is a picture of the sacrifice that Jesus made on the cross for the forgiveness of our sins.  And that, my friends, is not nothing.

Update on the Duffer Crew:

These last few weeks have been a whirlwind as well.  We are quickly approaching Timothy’s graduation.  Wow.  I know having a graduating child is a big deal for anyone.  But there is something about being a single parent and watching your child succeed in spite of difficulties that makes it just a tad bit overwhelming.  Timothy has over come a great deal.  Not as much as many.  But much more than others.  An incarcerated father, Aspergers, Learning disabilities, and having a mom who, like mentioned above, fails him often.  But here it is, May 2014, and my oldest son is running headfirst toward graduation.

Much has happened for him in the past 3 weeks.  First, he successfully completed a 3 night run of the Musical “Shrek” in the lead role of Shrek.  My “a bit awkward, a bit socially challenged” son, stood on that stage and acted his heart out, having the audience laughing uproariously.  He sang perfectly.  He had us believing he WAS Shrek.  And on the final night, a line of little kids waited patiently, all wanting to hug Shrek and get their picture taken with him.  Yes, proud mama moment!  And it’s not over yet…he and the amazing cast and crew of Shrek will be taking their performance to the Fringe Festival in Scotland in August, where they are only 1 in 7 American schools to be invited!

But that’s not all.  Several weeks ago I posted on Facebook that Tim had taken the practice ASVAB test at the Navy Recruiter’s office.  He disappointingly fell two points below the minimum to be accepted into the navy on that test.  To say he was discouraged was an understatement.  A week after that test, he took the real ASVAB test at school.  We were both very nervous.  However, there was no need to be.  He recently received his scores—a 78!  The minimum to get into the Navy was a 30.  The minimum needed to be considered for the nuclear program was a 75.  We were stunned.  And thrilled.  He’s going to get to achieve his dream of a career in the Navy!  During the first week of June we will return to the recruiter’s office (this time with a Navy man from church who has graciously volunteered to walk him through this process) and make the commitment.  Another proud mom moment.

But these are all just achievements.  Oh, I’m not saying they are not amazing, they are, especially with the obstacles Tim has overcome.  But the real point was made my Tim the yesterday when I took him to dinner to “celebrate”.  These were his words to me: “Mom, I never dreamed my life would actually work out.  That I would have a lead in a musical, that I would graduate, that I would get to go into the Navy.  Can you believe it?  Mom, the only answer is that it must be God!”

And, my friends, what other explanation could there be?  Except that nothing separates us from the love of God.  And He must have a plan–for all of us, even when we don’t sense Him.  Even when He is silent.  Even when despair is thick.  Even when we don’t see the next step.

The rest of the Duffer crew?  All are doing well.  Keli continues to work as assistant manager at MensWearHouse in Hampton, and she and her boyfriend continue to minister every single Sunday to the residents at the Carey House, providing them a worship service and a meal.  Mark continues to do very well in school, and just informed me 30 minutes ago that he thinks it would be “pretty cool to become a Dr. and move to Africa and open a free clinic there”.  Yeah, Mark, that would be pretty cool.  And Bethany? She continues to write, continues to sing, and continues to seek out God and love her friends with her huge heart.

So, as Mother’s Day approaches–I don’t celebrate my motherhood, because honestly there is not much to celebrate.  Ask my kids, I definitely will never win the “Mom of the Year” award.  But I do celebrate the four amazing children that God has in my life, and their incredible resilience, determination and hard work.  I am so blessed.

 

This has been quite a week.

Sunday–Resurrection Sunday–I found myself overwhelmed by the joy of my risen Savior.  Overcome by gratitude in remembrance of my Easter baptism several years ago, and the picture of grace baptism is.

But I am so spiritually immature.  And foolish.

For on Monday morning, not even 24 hours after celebrating what God had done through the death and resurrection of His son, I found myself swallowed up in very real despair.  And, a rarity for me, actually, very real anger.  Seething anger.

The circumstances do not matter.  The sin does.  And because real anger is not often in my sin repertoire (don’t take that wrong, my repertoire of sins is enormous–it’s just that anger is one of the less experienced ones), I was shocked by the power of it.  And the difficulty of shaking it.  Even today, the tenaciousness of it wants to grab a hold of my soul and I am having to still fight it back actively.

Yes, once again I have failed, and failed hard.

And, once again in failing miserably, my soul wells up with old familiar refrains:  “You are a failure.  Only a failure.  You cannot be forgiven.  You don’t deserve God’s love.”  And the despair grows deeper.

But this week, through some reading I have done, I accidentally came across a verse.  A verse that I’ve read before, but have never considered before.  And definitely have never seen myself in it.  But there it was, just as if it had been highlighted with one of my big, fat Yellow Highlighters that I love so much:

Luke 22:31-32 (ESV)

31 “Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat, 32 but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned again, strengthen your brothers.”

Jesus is speaking to Peter here.  Stubborn, arrogant, foot-in-the-mouth Peter.  Who seems to make so many blundering mistakes that it is almost comical, if it wasn’t so sad.  Or–and I’m presuming this–so frustrating to Peter himself.  He doesn’t want to be a failure–this is the guy who assured Jesus he would never deny Him!  This is the guy that wants so badly to “get it right”.  To not mess up!  Yeah.  This is me.  Maybe it’s you, as well.

But in these two simple sentences from Jesus, there is hope for Peter.  And hope for me, who fails daily.

This verse assures me that Jesus knows.  He knows I’m going to fail.  To fall.  To mess up.  Often.  This is not a surprise to Jesus.

Good grief, it seems as if I have been sifted like wheat this week.  Yep, yep, yep.  And many weeks.  Many days.

But where is the hope??

It’s right there.  It’s right there in the following things:

• Jesus prayed for Peter.  How amazing is this?  “I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail”.  Jesus is our intercessor.  He prays for us.  Whew.  I know I don’t deserve that.  And neither do you.  But it is truth, He prays for us, that our faith will not fail.  I was certain–CERTAIN–at the beginning of this week that my faith was going to fail me.  Was failing me.  In fact, it wasn’t until yesterday that I saw glimpses of faith.  No, it hadn’t gone away.  It wasn’t “lost”.  It was, however, temporarily overshadowed by my sin.  And by extreme despair.  But in mercy yesterday, God brought me to these words in scripture.  And the shadows began to dissipate some, the cloud of despair began to lift some, and I began to glimpse fragments of my faith–which I am clinging to tightly right now, even as I right, even as I continue to fight the remnants of sin and despair.
• “And when you have turned again,”  Wow.  Six words..only six words, but full of such hope.  Jesus is saying to Peter, with absolute confidence “Peter, you will turn back to your faith.  You will fail.  You will sin.  But you will return to me.  To grace.  Often, when I fail and hope seems to flee, I become convinced that God will give up on me.  Why shouldn’t He?  Why shouldn’t He?  But He is faithful.  He is faithful to lead me back to repentance.  To lead me to my knees seeking His forgiveness and a return to faith and my only hope of survival–Him.  Only Him.
• But it doesn’t end there.  No, there is a comma, and then after that comma there is a command.  A command for Peter to strengthen his brothers.  Why is this hopeful?  Why is a command hopeful?  Because there is much hope in knowing that God has work for you to do.  People for you to minister to.  At one point I thought that door would be closed to me forever, due to my sinful nature.  Due to my ex-husband’s incarceration.  Due to my failure.  But a verse was recently shared with me that gave me tremendous hope that God does have work for me to do.  It’s found in 2 Corinthians 1:3-4:

3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, 4 who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.

God has mercifully granted me–and my crew–tremendous comfort in ALL of our affliction.  Affliction that has been, hurtfully, very public.  And also, affliction that is extremely private.   Tremendous comfort, through His grace.  But this comfort is not just for the my sake…just so that I will be comforted.  No, it is because this statement in 2 Corinthians is like Paul’s statement to Peter:  there is work to be done.  And so, with the comfort that I have been granted, I–this woefully sinful and failure of a person–am to comfort others who are in ay affliction–using the comfort that God has given me.

Do you see?  Do you see what tremendous hope lies in that command?  In that gift?  It’s nearly too much to take in.

So, today, I will continue to fight sin.  And despair.  I will continue to find myself, once again, in need of real grace and repentance.  Embarrassingly so, because I wonder “Will I ever get it right?  Am I destined to be Peter all of my life?”  And I know I will fail again. And again.  And again.

But I will also be grateful, because of the hope that Jesus gave to Peter (and me) in Luke 22.  And in the tremendous hope that He gives me in 2nd Corinthians 1.

It’s been an amazing Resurrection Sunday.

Time with my God early this morning. Worship with my Seaford Baptist Church family. Lunch with (most) of my crew. True Sabbath rest this afternoon.

But the day is not over.

It’s 5:15 pm right now. And in just a little over an hour, will be the anniversary of my baptism. It took place on an Easter evening. No, there wasn’t a planned worship service that night. But out of God’s grace and mercy, that’s the night that God called me to the waters of baptism.

We were a small group of worshippers that gathered that night, to sing to our God, and then to stand beside me as I took this long-coming act of obedience. Jack, my now incarcerated ex-husband, was the one who baptized me. And I’ll be honest with you–since his incarceration, I’ve had a hard time with that. In recent years, that has cast a sort of shadow over the remembrance for me.

But not this year.

Not this year because God has placed in my soul a brand new assurance that, no matter who baptized me that night, the actual baptism was not only clearly a calling to obedience by Him, it was a picture of my death and resurrection into new life–and it doesn’t matter who baptized me. Or who was in attendance. What matters is that God so loved me, that He gave His son for me. For you. For us. And as we all worshipped that night around the piano–He was glorified.

You may have been there. You may remember.

It’s because this verse in Romans 6:4 is truth. Real truth:

We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.

Do you see? If you are a believer, and have been baptized—you, and I, we were buried with Jesus in death. Not literal death, of course, but as a picture of the death that He died for us. He died for us! And we participate in baptism so that–just like our Jesus was raised from the dead, we, too can demonstrate a picture of what Christ did for us, in raising us from the death of our sins through the glory of God. We are baptized because God calls us to be baptized.

How sweet that night was, the night I was baptized. That night that God ordained. That Easter night that seems so long ago and yet seems like it could have occurred today. Surrounded by my friends–by my family. Worshipping God. Eating ice cream after. I will be forever grateful for that night.

For before that night, how I wrestled with doubt and disbelief! How it had a grasp upon my soul! It clung to me like mud that I couldn’t shake free of, that I couldn’t cleanse away on my own. But on the Saturday before my baptism Easter, I read a story in scripture that I’d never really looked at before. It’s found in John 20. It’s about Thomas. Oh, I knew Thomas was known as “Doubting Thomas”, but I had never really read the story deeply. I had never really considered the meaning. I had never really believed it was truth. Until that Saturday. When I saw myself, in Thomas.

24 Now Thomas, one of the Twelve, called the Twin, was not with them when Jesus came. 25 So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails, and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never believe.”

26 Eight days later, his disciples were inside again, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” 27 Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe.” 28 Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” 29 Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

I, too, stubbornly and sinfully had determined that I would not believe–not until I saw the evidence. I wanted to say, with Thomas, “Unless I have physical proof, unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails, I will never believe!” But, on that Saturday, in a moment of intense anguish, I admitted this to God. I essentially told God “Look, see Thomas? That is me! That is me!”

And in the moments that followed, God answered. No, He didn’t audibly talk to me. No, there was no miracle, no lightening strike, no blast of thunder confirming His presence. No, instead, there was a calming of my very hurting soul, and an awakening in my mind that I was the evidence I was looking for. My changed life was the evidence I was seeking. For God had changed me. He had pursued me. He had proven Himself to me. That He is the God that sees and knows and cares, even in this world full of evil. I was changed. I was the evidence. And I could say, with Thomas, “My Lord and my God!”

The night of my baptism, I asked a dear friend to read this passage from John 20 for us all. I wanted to hear the story again, before my baptism. She graciously read this scripture for all who were in attendance to hear.

Tonight, that same dear friend is at the funeral home, grieving, and receiving sweet condolences and love from our church family and the community, for the love of her life went home to be with Jesus just a couple of days ago. Tomorrow she will say “Goodbye for now”. There will be deep sadness. For my friend, for her family, for our community.

But she knows that it won’t be forever. This man came to know Jesus as His savior later in life, after being prayed for by her and by so many for so many years. And His love for God was sweet. Was real. Was truth. And today, on this Easter Sunday, He stands before our Father, whole and well, and able to say, with Thomas, “My Lord and my God!”

I share that story with you because it illustrates the work that Christ did for us upon the cross, when He died for our sins. And it shows the hope we have of eternal life through the resurrection of our Savior on that glorious Easter morning. You, too, can know this hope. You, too, can experience the cleansing power of forgiveness of sins. You, too, can join with me in proclaiming “My Lord and my God” as we gaze upon the evidence of our changed lives–changed only through His grace and mercy.