Go and Sin No More

I’m up at 1:20am unable to sleep and this theme keeps rolling around in my head. Since I can’t sleep I came downstairs to write so here we go.

The title of this blog may bring to mind the story of the woman caught in the act of adultery in John chapter 8 or maybe even the woman at the well in John chapter 4.

I was saved on July 30, 2009. I was 35 years old and had lived all my life searching and running and running and searching. I said the sinners prayer around a dinner table that amazing day in 2009, and my life was changed forever in that instant.

I had what some would call a “radical conversion moment” where one minute my life was going the wrong way and the next it was not. What I have found these last 12 years of my Christian life is that everyone’s story is unique. Some people have that “a-ha” moment like I did and for others it is more like a long, slow simmer into their faith life. Either way it is powerful, real, personal and miraculous.

I’ve often wondered about a few women in the Bible, and what their lives looked like after they began to live as Christians. The Bible doesn’t mention the failures and slip ups of either the woman at the well (John 4) nor the woman caught in the act of adultery (John 8) after their moment of coming to faith in Jesus, but you’ve got to know that they weren’t perfect from the get go. They probably struggled with old tendencies, and…NEWSFLASH! They probably did sin even after their miraculous encounters with the Messiah Himself! Oh, but His grace covers!

These were women with extremely broken pasts: the woman at the well who’d had five husbands and then the woman caught in the act of adultery. Let me say that again for the people in the back: a woman who’d had five husbands and another woman caught in the act of adultery. Safe to say, they had issues with men, and they probably had a laundry list of lots of other issues as well. I can relate. Let me let you in on a little secret (or maybe not so little of a secret). I was the woman at the well. Let me also confess that some things in my life changed miraculously on that wonderful July day in 2009, and others… well…let’s just say I am a work in progress and thankful for the Lord’s grace and truth in my life. Oh, but His grace covers!

That’s the thing about God that’s so perfect! He is gracious, and He is truthful. Only He can understand the whole truth and nothing but the truth. The trap for us onlookers sometimes is to think that because someone is saved they need to do A, B and C in a timeline that we perceive to be acceptable to the Lord. We become judge and jury without really knowing the heart of God.

I think the reason this theme, this warning is coming to mind is that we are at a critical time in life when we need to come together as the body of Christ and truly be about our Father’s business. He did not call us to police the lives of other Christians and think ourselves superior. He called us to live lives of love in Him and in service to others. The moment you and I become critical and frustrated with others’ lives not looking as holy as we think ours is, we have stepped outside of being of service to others and have entered the futile realm of merely being a spectator. The Bible has something to say about that. I just looked this passage up in The Message:

A Simple Guide for Behavior

Matthew 7 ^1-5 “Don’t pick on people, jump on their failures, criticize their faults—unless, of course, you want the same treatment. That critical spirit has a way of boomeranging. It’s easy to see a smudge on your neighbor’s face and be oblivious to the ugly sneer on your own. Do you have the nerve to say, ‘Let me wash your face for you,’ when your own face is distorted by contempt? It’s this whole traveling road-show mentality all over again, playing a holier-than-thou part instead of just living your part. Wipe that ugly sneer off your own face, and you might be fit to offer a washcloth to your neighbor.

At this time there are men, women and children in Afghanistan who profess Christ who are not concerned about how someone else’s faith life looks, of this we can be sure. Their reality is a life and death one. We can be certain their focus is the Lord and not the speck in someone else’s eye – the smudge on their neighbor’s face. This should be a sobering thought, a wake up call that we need to get serious and stop sweating the small stuff or we are going to miss the very thing God wants our attention on. We need to deal with the ugly sneer on our own face and pray. Like the verse above says..”that we might be fit to offer a washcloth to our neighbor.”

Thank you for reading this early morning post. It’s a heavy one for sure, but one I think we all need. It’s time. Time to be humble. Time to be prayerful. Time to grow. Time to change. Time to stop judging. Time to come together. Time to love. Time to be about our Father’s business.

With all my heart,

Sonia

P.S. If you have been judged, pushed out, demeaned, bullied, left out, ridiculed, misunderstood and even if you’re the judge and jury…this song is for you and for me:

JLo and “Againiffer”?

“Monster In Law” Premiere (Stock Editorial Photography)

Happy Wednesday, friends. How’s your week so far? Mine’s alright – lots of things swirling around in my brain already, some great and some not so great, but overall this is the them today: HURT. I am Christian. I became a Christian almost eleven years ago. So when I am thinking about how I processed being hurt before I became I Christian, I just remember never dealing with it. I just walked around with the open wounds in my life and my choices led to adding to my pain. I was living my life just trying to survive and functioning out of a constant myriad of pain. Back then, the pain turned into hardness and numbness. I became more and more cynical, more self- sufficient, more unforgiving, more controlling, more selfish and more and more closed off to true relationships. That’s what survival meant for me then. The hurts of unattended heartbreak made me an untrusting woman and eventually led to immense control issues.

I know…this is a heavy topic for a Wednesday morning, but I was reading the news last night and came across the latest headlines about JLo and how she is now with Ben Affleck. I understand that this might be a publicity stunt or something fabricated like that (putting this in here for my husband who constantly reminds me not to believe everything I read in the news – I get it LOL), but just the fact that she has been married three times, engaged four times and has had numerous boyfriends, leads me to believe this former Fly Girl is looking for love in all the wrong places. Seriously, she just got out of a long term relationship with ARod and now she’s with Ben, and it’s “Againiffer”?! She seems like the woman at the well in the Bible in John chapter 4, doesn’t she? (You can read the story here: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John%204%3A1-26&version=NIV).

No judgment here, I promise! I can relate – obviously – my blog’s title should clue you in that I know a thing or two about searching for love and ending up hurt until you find yourself at a well under the scorching sun, filled with shame. So, what I have learned about “hurt” since becoming a Christian? Well, the biggest thing I’ve learned is that there is actual healing that leads to wholeness. There really is, but there’s one catch, and the catch is you have to be willing to admit the hurt and surrender it. I totally get that surrender is a complicated term, especially nowadays, but it is true.

I am in a season where deep hurt is a very present reality – just when I think I have forgotten about it, I am struck with a memory or see a photo or something pops up on social media, and I remember…oh yeah, that’s right -there’s the pain. I got hurt, very badly. Thankfully that’s not the end of this blog post. The very amazing thing about being a Christian is that healing is possible – true healing, not like the little instagram quotes that you read one minute and forget the next. My healing process means that I am honest with God about what I am feeling. I journal about it. I am in therapy over it. I talk about it with my husband and only a few trusted friends (if and when I need a sounding board so I don’t toilet paper anyone’s house). I look to God’s Word over it, and most of all these days, I have hope in it. Hope that God will change me more into the whole version of the Sonia that He created. I already see glimpses of this wholeness. Even though the sting of it will pop up, the solidness that is anchoring me to the truth and love of God is indescribable. I just don’t have words for that part of it. I wish I did. I wish I could tell you what this new found strength and trust in the Lord feels like and looks like, but I will say this: you have to be in it to know it, and I invite you – if have never experienced the healing power of Jesus Christ accept it today. Accept Him today! If you want prayer over this just send me an email: sonialvsJesus@gmail.com, and I promise I will pray (and probably cry) with you.

So to all you former or current FlyGirls, Jesus is standing there at whatever old well (or boyfriend) you are staring at, and He is saying “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.” (John 4:26 NIV) I pray you don’t miss the opportunity of a lifetime for the healing of all that hurt.

With all my heart, Sonia

P.S. I put the salsa version of “The Blessing” song here since we are all about the Latinas today with JLo & all. Please enjoy and give yourself some room to dance!