The truth of God’s great love for me was not the only truth that I found while dealing with Ugly. After working for a while on my list of the physical attributes that I liked about myself, I started getting comfortable with it. Then my counselor started meddling again. (Please understand that I say that with the greatest respect.) She gave me a new assignment, to list the specific ways that God was showing His great love for me. So I began to list them in my journal.

Here’s a part of that list:

• I am fearfully and wonderfully made. (Of course this is first on the list, since I had been writing it daily for weeks and weeks.)
• I am a new creation.
• I am a person worthy to be liked.
• I am loved by God and very special to Him.
• He guides me.
• He protects me.
• He shows me His ways.
• I receive His Grace and Mercy every day.
• He made me unique.

Now, let me clarify something about writing these lists. When I am writing one, it usually takes me about a week, and I cry a LOT! I never knew that a person could cry so much. When someone like me, who was sexually traumatized but then stuffed it away for forty years, starts feeling and healing — well, the emotions just come and come and come.

God started sharing a truth with me through two verses.  Colossians 2:10 says, “[A]nd in Him you have been made complete” and Philippians 1:6 continues, “For I am confident of this very thing, that He Who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus” (NAS).  It was not by my looks that I was made complete, nor by what others thought about me, but it was Christ Himself Who completes me. I am not ugly because Christ made me, and He made me complete.

God also promised me that the work He had started in me will one day be perfected. As I looked at these verses again, I realized that it was not just any work but a good work that He wants to complete in me. So I began to write these two precious Scriptural promises in my journal every day. I believed that God was using what had happened to me in the past; the mistakes I had made; the struggles with Dumb, Stupid, and Ugly; my unforgiveness of others; the fears and phobias I was facing; and my deep, deep depression to complete the good work He was doing in my life. Someday I would be perfect! Oh, what a blessed thought.

Do you need to see that TRUTH today? Do you need to know that God is able to work through all the horrible times in your life, through the hurts, the pain, the loneliness, the loss of hope, or the fear of what you have experienced? Then cling with me to those precious promises. We must believe and live knowing that one day we will be made complete and whole. We may feel like damaged goods at times, but God uses our damaged vessels and He will make us complete because He loves us so much. Oh, how I long for it even now.

Complete. Whole. New.

I believe. Will you?

Blessings – Lisa