Mirrors on the walls of my pit

Yesterday, I was able to attend a live conference with Beth Moore. First of all, those of you who know me, know that I love her. I have done several of her studies and she never ceases to teach me something about the power and meaning of God's word. She has made me laugh and cry...which is hard to do, seeing that I have been accused of not being born with tear ducts! Anyway, yesterday was a message about God's deliverance, and I promise she did not disappoint.

Her message was simple..we are all worthy of God's mercy and forgiveness. Beth symbolizes this need to be rescued with being in a pit. She says that you can get into the pit several different ways. You can get into the pit by your own choice, someone else's actions can force you into the pit, or you can slip in the pit. The way out is the same, God's mercy. I always love her illustrations. She described his deliverance with the verses Pslams 18:16-19. To paraphase, God reaches down, takes hold of us and rescues us from our pit. What a vivid picture of our God reaching down and grabbing hold of us with His hands and delivering us from whatever sin we allow to take over our lives. We can't crawl out of it on our won. His grace is sufficient!!

What would your pit be decorated with? What is it that makes the sin so attractive? I went into the conference thinking about what it is that I need to get away from. I think I already knew, but it was made clear to me. The walls of my pit are decorated with mirrors. I am overly obsessed with my appearance. I spend too much of my time thinking about my weight, what I am going to wear, my hair, and how I appear to others. I know this is a common problem for all women. However, I think I crossed the normal line a long time ago. I know it goes back to being overweight as a child. But as an adult, I have kept my weight fairly well in check, especially in the past 3 or 4 years. My problem lies in the fact that so much of my time and thoughts are filled with my appearnce that it gets in the way of things I really need to be doing. I might spend 30 minutes overthinking what I am going to wear to school each day. I think things like, "I wore that 3 weeks ago, what if someone remembers?" "If I wear that now, I might need to wear it in a few weeks, I better save it." Typing that makes it seem worse. It's just crazy. It's just an obsession.

What now am I going to do about my mirrored pit? My prayer is that God will help me to be happy with myself, that he will reach down, take hold of me and rescue me from this obsession. It's not going to be easy to erase all the thoughts that have been swirling in my mind all these years? I know I can't do it without His help.

How is your pit decorated? Is it with pictures of someone you can't forgive? Is it hard for you to let go of past sins? Are you in the pit with people who lead you down the wrong road? Or is it covered with mirrors like mine?

It's actually a very freeing feeling to know that we worship a God who is able to forgive us and wraps us in His mercy and love. He is truly worthy of all our praise!

Sandy C