chasing eternity: a changing light
“A self is not something static, tied up in a pretty parcel and handed to the child, finished and complete. A self is always becoming.” - Madeline L’engle.
I don’t believe that people don’t change. It doesn’t matter the terrible things you did as a child or as an adolescent, but if you repent for them and come to Christ later on, you will be granted eternity as well. I used to think that the people who are saved had their names written down since their birth. I was privileged in that I was baptized at birth, but the struggle to grasp on to God in the midst of sin and to hold onto faith despite the inundation of secular messages from this world ruled by Satan are battles that I’m still fighting.
Yesterday there was a sermon about the light of Jesus and how it can transform us and renew us. I was looking through my writing on this blog, and I noticed that some of it was tainted by the darkness. Walking in the light away from the darkness is a path in life that I want to commit to. My waxing and waning faith show in my writing, and I want it to be covered in the light and in love, for love covers a multitude of sins.
“But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness, and does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes.” 1 John 2:11
I’m still trying to figure out how to forgive fellow Christians who sinned against me. In 2022, I was subject to an act of sin by two believers. They held prejudices against me, castigating me as I was walking by myself in the subway station, going up to me and accusing me of racial profiling and discrimination against their races (black and Korean). I didn’t even know them, I’ve never seen them before, and I certainly never said anything to them or about them that was racially damning. The whole time I was thinking about how to get promoted at my cushy 6-figure job (I was a software engineer), and they were just verbally harassing me as we were taking the train and walking back to my apartment.
An act of sin followed. I lost my job, I got complex PTSD. I also went on a journey to find Christ again (more on that later).
I met them a year later at the church I was going to, and my subconscious drew me to them. Do you ever feel like God draws you to people you’ve met before and the purpose of the encounter was to defeat strongholds, inner demons, or shadows of the self? That was what it was like for me. It took a long time to process the chain of events that first started 2 years ago. I later accused them of wrongdoing, wanting to take them down, wanting to humiliate them and get revenge for what had transpired a year earlier.
"Do not rejoice when your enemy falls, and let not your heart be glad when he stumbles" - Proverbs 24:17
But I think forgiveness has less to do with the act that you stumbled upon that led to your want of vengeance and hatred of your purported enemies and more to do with your love of Christ. Holding onto unforgiveness creates this wall inside yourself, a giant bulwark that is like stone sinking your spirit and preventing you from reaching the light. Unforgiveness is darkness trampling your soul, shadows staying within yourself to seclude your spirit into isolation and breaking you away from union with Christ. Not only that, I could think of 100 reasons why sin followed me that day, 100 reasons to do with my lack of a healthy spiritual life and my dearth of faith. I no longer want to condemn them for what happened that day in the subway and in my apartment. I choose to forgive and walk in the light.
"Where should I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence? If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost part of the sea, even there you heart shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me." - Psalms 139:8-10
I’ve been changing and growing in my walk with Christ since 2 years ago when I came back to Him again. I think of myself as a renewed believer, someone who lost her way in her faith but found it again, here, in the city where I’ve lost and gained, where I’ve been made and been remade. I’m there and back again, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
