Who Am I Really? A Victim or a Victor? - Devotional by Helen Lescheid

“Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation, the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ…” 2 Corinthians 5:17

What is keeping you from becoming the person you want to be?

Do you blame it on a past experience like a traumatic childhood that’s decimated your self-worth? A gross injustice that’s robbed you of joy? A past failure that haunts you?

If we base our self-worth on a sad experience which happened in the past such as: I’m a divorcee; I’ve had cancer, I’ve suffered abuse…This leads to defeated thinking like I’m damaged goods, this is who I am; I can’t change it.

That’s what Satan wants us to think. But it’s not true. Yes, we can’t change the past—we can’t wipe out those experiences–but we can change how we respond to them. We can be free of that trauma. How? Turn it over to God. Release it to God. It may help to write out the painful experience, then lift it up to the ceiling and say

“Lord, Jesus, I give this to you now. I want to be free of this. Thank you that you will heal me of the trauma and You will make something good out of these experiences.”

Each time another negative thought comes to you, say, “I’ve dealt with that. I’m a new person in Christ.”

When you let go of the hurts of the past, God can use those experiences to make you more empathetic and understanding of other people who have also suffered injustices.