Sarah’s Story: Beauty From Ashes

Have you ever felt like you’ve made a mess of things? Or that you have lived a life making all the wrong choices? Do you live with a feeling of embarrassment, disappointment with yourself or even full blown shame?

Firstly, can I assure you that you are not alone and secondly that you don’t have to keep feeling like this!

This is how I know; I’ve been where you are!

As human beings we all mess up and make wrong choices. We can live a life where we make all our choices based on what we feel like we need that day, with little or no regard for anybody else as long as we satisfy our personal needs for the day.

As a non-Christian I lived a life like this and was driven by making choices that made me feel happy , ‘in the moment’, loved, popular, and significant in the eyes of the world and those around me. Does any of this sound familiar?

I drifted along living an increasingly ‘party lifestyle’ at any cost. This involved at times drinking too much, making wrong choices with guys and on occasions making unsafe choices with no regard to my health, emotionally or physically. I lived a selfish and self-indulgent lifestyle that brought only temporary satisfaction, without even realising it.

Fast forward to becoming a Christian and giving my life to God. I knew that I had been making bad choices and that I needed Jesus in my life if it was to have any real meaning or purpose.

So, I started my new life, where I made choices based on what God wanted me to do that would have a kingdom significance and things started changing for me.

“This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!” – 2 Corinthians 5:17

I knew that I had made a mess of things in my old life and that I could not go back and ‘clean up’. I also knew I had done damage to other people along the way. But, realising that I was a new creation and forgiven for all the mistakes I had made and that God now saw me as righteous because of His son Jesus was overwhelming and still is. This was a free gift to me and all I had to do was say yes to Jesus, absolutely incredible!!

However, the deep, dark, ‘hidden’ feelings I had were still there. I would literally feel like people could see my past in me or that it was like a banner over my head and I found it hard to make eye contact so people couldn’t see the depths of me, because they would be shocked if they really knew the truth.

Fast forward to September 2014 and starting TSM at The Kings Arms Church in Bedford. During the course of the year God slowly and gently revealed to me that I was living in shame about my past and I was letting it keep me locked up, in chains, held back, feeling disqualified and living without fully understanding who I was and the authority I carry as His daughter.

Once I had a revelation of this I was able to cast off the coat of shame which I had become accustomed to wearing and put on my royal robes, as the chains holding me down were broken off. For me this was the beginning of a transformation and really the start of living in my new identity as the ‘Daughter of the King’.

But, as if this wasn’t brilliant enough, God wanted to use my mess to help others! My shame has become a key to freedom for others. I have had the opportunity to share my testimony and talk at several events that have brought other people into freedom.

It has become my passion for me to see others set free from shame, disappointment and disqualification! He is letting me partner with Him in this and I am beyond excited to see what is going to happen.

But I do know this, there is freedom coming for you!

My prayer for you is that God will break off the chains of shame, disqualification or disappointment that hold you back and that you will come into freedom and the identity of who you really are, as precious and beautiful Daughters of the King. In Jesus mighty name, Amen.

“And provide for those who grieve in Zion– to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the LORD for the display of his splendour.” – Isaiah 61:3