Sin Resilience

Some of my thoughts over the past few days:

I spent much of my time as a youth and young adult trying to be small. Not physically small, but small so I would not be noticed, not called on. This led to many behaviors that were counter productive. I frequently thought that I did not matter, that I was not good enough (which is also part of another, larger issue). These thoughts helped me to lie to myself about my real intentions, my real desires and thoughts. I would hide from what I really thought or felt and try to conform to the standards set by others for me. I bottled all those thoughts and desires up deep inside of me and eventually, just like sewage leaks outs of a broken pipe, that vessel ruptured and I was swept away in a vile flood. That flood lasted a long time. I am now just stepping out of it, on to the shore of understanding. I wish I would not have run from my thoughts, not hid from my desires, but rather faced them head on to overcome them when they were small and easy to defeat. I wish I had dared greatly to shape who I wanted to be, instead of run and hide from everything.

Sin resilience:
I have been reading a book called Daring Greatly by Brene Brown. The book is about shame and how we deal with it. Its a very good read. In the book she talks about shame resilience, which is the idea that we will all experience shame, we cannot resist it (in fact she states that resisting shame leads to more shame). That is where this idea comes from. Now I know that the scriptures all tell us to resist evil and temptation, but what happens when we do sin, when we slip and make mistakes (even if our intentions were good)? We all will, at some point in our lives experience this. Whether from our own selves or from someone else. So what do we do about it? Repent? That is an excellent place to start! But I think we don't understand repentance as well as we could. This idea has helped me to understand it a bit more. Here it is:

Sin resilience is:
1. An understanding that we all sin, whether wanting to or not, we all do
2. Not letting the sins or mistakes define who we are or who we want to be
3. Accepting the fact that we all need forgiveness and the steps of repentance to feel whole and healthy
4. Not beating yourself or others up about their mistakes, rather have an attitude of forgiveness and understanding (most likely that person already feels bad about their mistakes)

Its still kind of a work in progress. I've been pondering over these ideas for about a month now and I finally came to a realization of that they all mean today.