One Step Begins a Journey.

“Put on your new nature, and be renewed as you learn to know your Creator and become like him.” Colossians 3:10

  It’s been a thought provoking week. Much has been around what I’ve said about confession off and on over the years. I was coming at it from the wrong direction because I was getting confession mixed up with repentance; my understanding of repentance having meant getting down on my knees and begging God’s forgiveness for my sins.

  I just learned on Wednesday that to repent means to turn away or choose another path. This insight has changed my life because it has empowered my ability to make choices.

  It’s also given me pause to think about what I say and do that has dis-empowered the ability to make better choices. Let’s take my ample waistline for example. I had convinced myself that the meds were the cause and that I was helpless to fend off the carb and sugar craving side effects. I was giving myself permission to go ahead and eat accordingly because I could not do otherwise. My ability to choose was handed over to a couple bottles of pills.

  I also managed to convince myself that there wasn't the money to eat properly. Then telling myself how much I struggle with cooking for one or not feeling like cooking at all because of feeling depressed. Even the kitchen sink was part of this anti-cooking justification. You get the idea. All these things, these lies, have piled up to justify the permission to eat whatever with no regard to weight or health.

  It feels good to confess these things without guilt and without shame. Instead, they come with a renewed understanding. I have realized my words and ideas have poisoned my mind and soul by dis-empowering the freedom to choose. For that I ask God’s forgiveness. I can also ask His forgiveness for not trusting in Him to provide for all my needs.

  So this new nature is a repentant one. Repentance is life giving, life embracing when we turn to God in all things but how does confession tie into it? Confession helps identify the areas of my life I do not look to God. Confession, as the Holy Spirit guides me, identifies the areas, habits, un-Godly beliefs, and sin I need to turn away from. One can't happen without the other.

  The Vitamin D has also changed my life. It has manifested itself by giving me a new nature. I hadn’t realized how much the dark cloud of depression was a constant companion. If something is present all the time, how would or could I know anything different?

  For the first time ever, the lifelong presence of depression is completely gone.

  There are no words to describe what this is like.

  When hospitalized for depression and anxiety, right away they give out Vitamin D. The dose wasn’t high enough. That’s why I thought it didn’t make a difference. It justified my not taking it at all.

  Thank You, Lord, for pharmacists and for leading me to ask the right questions.

  With the depression gone, a lot of the anxiety is falling away. I hadn’t understood that much of the anxiety was because every day was like trying to walk upstream on slippery rocks against a torrent of sorrow.

  This gift of a renewed spirit will make it much easier to make changes to my lifestyle.

  This new nature will mean I can thrive.

  It might take time to make all the changes and to learn new habits. Thank You, Lord for grace. Thank You that I am not alone.

  The first thing I am going to do is stick a label on the bathroom mirror: Repent, for the kingdom of God is near.