In The Face of Another.

Sometimes your past is revealed to you very starkly in the lives of others. You catch glimpse of who you are or were from the stories and experiences that somone else brings forth and at that moment new perspective comes to you if you allow it to. It all is a matter of where your heart is an d giving yourself to the new creation that Christ has brought you to.

For a long time I struggled with what my alcholism, anger, domineering personality had done to those around me. I blamed myself for many aspects of my sin in the lives of my family and even to some extent to the lives of those around me. I was a good man, but I had a bad heart that did notr care for the consequences of my actions. Pride allowed me only to think of myself and the satisfaction that I recieved from the evil outbursts, the coerion, lies, twisting, what ever words you place, it was all about me and me feeling right. I said once to my father, that when I got angery, I did not care about anyone else. Not just a passing not caring, but a deep lack of care that was willing to give up love, and life in it's despiration.

So sometimes in the face of others you see the damage. When you see the pain that has been in anothers life you then see more fully how the evil works. "The yeast of the Pharisees", evil that can spread out and take over aspects of lives that was far beyond even the instance when the hurt took place. Yeast that remains, and grows and manifests itself every time new bread, life, experience, comes into play. A daughter that saw abuse then expects the same as an adult for her husband. One evil manifesting into another. And I saw the damage of another, similar to mine, in the face of another.

Thankfully, my self condemnation has turned into acceptance of the life that I have had and how God can work all things for the Good for those taht love Him. The expression of pain from one hurting Christian convicting another. The wrongdoer becomeing the counselor, the appologist, one feeding into the rest, to the one. I can turn the bad into good in the name of Jesus Crist and the Spirit that is within me. I can trust His word. I can walk knowing that whatever I was, I am not in Jesus Christ and that my past has become the foundation of my faith. That each struggle is one stone that I can now stand upon in victory.

Know "good men" that we see ourselves as the most important person to us, sees us. That when you hurt and then you cause hurt, that will become this yeast. That each time you either build up or tear down you are being watched and that those things are not forgotten but ingrained in those around you. So we can walk in foolish pride and only think of ourselves, or we can walk in the goodness that is in Love. You may find jesu Christ and faith to be foolishness, but if you can in anyway explain to me how anything that is in the Gospels is not better then what this world has to offer, please do so. Others pay for our foolishness and if you can look at that pain and not feel your own ugliness then you must ask who's you are.

I am thankful for the the working of the Holy Spirit and the new life that I have in Jesus Christ. My past will remain in its place forever, but the working that is in me now is incredible and so appreciated. These reminders are strengthening in how far He has brought me. Allow Him the same for you.

Lord Jesus, continue the good work in me, allow me to grow as your creation and not allow the evil one to destroy me because of my past but for me to embrace that past and turn it back as a weopon against him. Thank you for the face of another to allow me to see the distance