Out of the Shadows.
Those who do truth, come to the light
At the start of 2014 I decided to share a series of posts on social media about the things I’d been through in my life. I called it ‘Out of the Shadows’ and each day for about three months, I posted. I was afraid of rejection and judgment but when I began to see the impact that being open with my truth was having on other people, it encouraged me to keep going.
I received messages telling me that I shouldn’t do it, but they didn’t see or hear conversations I was having with people who were being set free because of it, so I forgave them for what they didn’t know and what they were trying to abort.
The beautiful thing about sharing my story was that in the process, I had to face the shame of my past and that was healing me so that I could let it go.
What many didn’t realise was that while I was posting and encouraging others, I was personally experiencing real challenges in my current life. It was a time when day to day I didn’t know how I was going to eat, where I was going to stay or why I was still putting myself through hardship in New York City.
I wanted to go home to London, I wanted stability and security, but after praying about going home and hearing clearly that I was where I was meant to be at that time, I had to surrender, even if it meant sleeping on the subway (which thankfully I never had to do!)
My second favourite scripture in the Bible is John 3: 20-21 and it says: ‘Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.’ (NIV)
I love this scripture because you would expect the opposite of doing evil to be doing good, but it’s not - it’s truth. Many hide their evil deeds because they are ashamed and afraid that they will be exposed but I discovered along my Out of the Shadows journey that God didn’t want me to hide in the shadows and I didn’t have to be good in order to come in to the light, he just wanted truth.
There’s one thing I ensure in my life - that I am always honest with God about everything, no matter how evil or bad it may appear. I know he can handle it - he’s God!