Remember not the sins of my youth or my transgressions; according to your steadfast love remember me, for the sake of your goodness, O Lord!

Psalm‬ ‭25‬:‭7

Ditto.

It is nice to know that the man after God’s own heart made pleas similar to my own heart’s desire.

I want my past to be erased. That’s not me anymore. I’m a new creation. God is love and so let me move toward his love and be covered in it.

I needed a blank slate. But I also couldn’t run away from everything to start over. There was also a long period of reconstruction that I became responsible for carrying out.

Recovery charges us with adhering to opposing forces. Scripture does the same and more. On the one hand, we are new creations. On the other, we have been carried through death into life so that we might show others the way.

I want to close the door on that chapter, but it has become the thing I need to continue to point toward as part of my story.

I want to push the past under the rug. But cleaning it up and living with eyes wide open becomes more fruitful than sterilizing my journey.

I want to have a flawless track record. But I don’t. None of us do. And love does cover over any and everything that I have run from.

I was embraced by others in recovery and was shown how to share my experience appropriately in helpful ways. By the examples of others, I learned how to live out the practical commands of scripture—loving and forgiving and serving.

The things that don’t always come easily. But the things that broken people like me desperately need.

God help me get over myself and share honestly.