I Stand All Amazed

Today in church, for the sacrament, we sang hymn number 193 I Stand All Amazed, and I thought about how wonderful it is that Jesus cared enough to die for me. The only reason I qualify to receive the great blessing is because of my own worth before God.

For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 8:38-39)

Nothing I do can ever diminish my worth and my value, and as I have traveled the road of recovery, I have come to see and believe that God loves me. I have no need to feel shame about what I have done in my addiction, and continue to do because of my addiction.

One of the things I did when I started to work to build my relationship with God was look for scriptures that talked about how kind and merciful He is, and it was a wonderful experience. Here are scriptures that I resonated with the most: 

My recovery, I believe, will never end. At least not in this life anyway, so I have to choose everyday what it is that I want: the peace and comfort that I feel by loving and following God (however haltingly I do it), or the misery that I felt for three decades when I was alone on my battle with addiction? I was alone, not because God didn't love me, but because I chose to turn from Him. Now that I have turned to Him every single day, I have hope a better life.