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I was on the fencing team in college (Texas A&M). No jokes...I mean sword fighting--not building fence. One Christmas I had to go back really early for practice. It was strange to be there with most everyone still on vacation. My apartment was empty of the three other women who lived with me; actually, most of the apartment complex was empty. The campus was pretty empty too. Everything was just so quiet.
I dealt with a lot of depression during those years, and I was in bondage to feelings of worthlessness, loneliness, and many other things. In the quietness of an abandoned college town with nothing to drown it out I felt that depression so much more deeply. I actually called a pastor I didn't know well to come and help me sort things out. He heard my story, found out that I really was a follower of Christ, and then shared this verse with me from Romans: "Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." (8:1)
That night I really couldn't absorb that this verse really was referring to me. God had forgiven me, but I really couldn't forgive myself. I truly didn't see any worth in myself. It has taken years to process through my feelings, including the whys behind why I felt that way in the first place, but there was such freedom when I gradually began to understand the truth in that verse.
When we receive Christ, it's great when we can truly trust Him with our newness--with the fact that anything that made us feel worthless is in the past, but sometimes that is really hard. There are things that trouble us so deeply that when we come to Him we trust, but we have to learn to trust. Like the man who told Jesus, "I believe, help me with my unbelief" (Mark 9:24).
We are quickly approaching 'empty-nest' years. I know everyone really feels this way, but with a special needs kid, it seems magnified. Did we do everything that God would have us do with our boys? And again, I'm faced with a possibility of pulling out the self-condemnation gun, but God says, "There is now therefore no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus."
I'm pondering that so much lately, and the ropes are falling off.