God has forgiven, why can't I forget?

I was lying in bed the other night completely exhausted from the long day that I just barely made it through.  I woke up exhausted, I had a rough morning with the girls, I had a hectic day at work, I was struggling to get through some homework and my oldest daughter had just had an epic meltdown that not only left me with a few physical bruises but left me feeling like a complete failure.  As I lay there on the verge of tears I couldn’t help but have the thought that God was punishing me for my past sins.    And certain sins of mine kept popping into my head.  My mind was racing with thoughts of “if you had never turned your back on God then he wouldn’t turn His back on you” and “you deserve to suffer for what you have done.”

I lay in bed and I started crying.  And not the few tears running down my face crying, it was the full-blown sobs where you choke on your tears because you can no longer control it sobbing.  It felt as if my tears had bubbled up from the very depths of my soul and that they would never stop.  And as I cried I was screaming in my head, “GOD FORGIVE ME, please make it stop, PLEASE forgive me.” 

And as I lay there falling apart I had a moment of clarity.  It is not God who is holding my sins against me; it is me who cannot let go of them. 

Have I sinned?  Yes, more times than I can even count.  Do I still sin?  Of course I do.  I know that there are natural consequences to my sins, some that I deal with daily – yet God offers forgiveness and He offers grace.  He does not use that sin against us.  And that forgiveness and grace is not dependent on who I am, but on whom He is.

When I sin Jesus is not staring at me in disgust, He is looking at me with love and compassion and forgiveness.  He is waiting for me to ask for forgiveness and come to Him and to lay it all at His feet.  And He forgives my sin.  Right then and there, and He lets go of it.  And I need to let go of it too.

My prayer is that I learn to let it go, that I learn to find freedom in the love and grace of Jesus.  And I pray that if anyone else ever feels this way that they to will find His love and grace and learn to be free from the heavy weight of their sins.