06/05/2026
This is heart felt and worth the read!! Thank you Deborah Stone Bailey for this guest post!!
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The Trouble With Unforgiveness...
Of One’s Self
The hardest person to forgive is often myself, yet when I refuse that forgiveness, nothing good comes from it. Not only do I stay stuck in place, but I also constantly live life looking in the rearview mirror. While looking backward, I cannot move forward; therefore, I am right where Satan wants me.
Instead of stepping out of the darkness that engulfs me into the light God has promised me, I stay in the middle of my sin. Yes, in the middle of my sin.
Each time Satan brings guilt and shame to me, my mind sees the sin accompanied by a mental picture of it and often some detail that breathes life back into something God forgave and forgot the moment I earnestly asked for His forgiveness.
Unlike me, God has removed my sins as far as the east is from the west. He does not remember them. He counts our tears without remembering why we cry them.
So, when I relive my sin and even see some of the details of it, I am pleasing the originator of that sin, not honoring the Giver of life, forgiveness, and grace.
In our spiritual warfare, we fight the powers of darkness daily. We are fooled into holding on to our sins through guilt, shame, and the misguided notion that letting go of them somehow means we are no longer repentant of those sins.
Repenting over and over, remembering the sin, and mourning over it suggests that we do not believe God’s promises are true. If we truly believed His promises, then we would leave those sins where they belong—banished from our hearts and lives, just as they are with Christ, who forgave them when we brought them to the foot of the cross in earnest, seeking forgiveness and redemption.
Continually living in the midst of our sins through our memories serves to please Satan, not to honor God.
I have likened my failure to forgive my own sins to the grief I suffered when my Daddy was called home to be with the Lord. I mourned him and grieved relentlessly for the next two years.
I felt that once I let go of the grief, I would be letting go of the last connection I had to him. When I finally let go, I realized just how God had honored him throughout the last year of his life and how blessed his going home to the Lord truly was. He went to sleep on Christmas Eve only to wake up on Christmas morning in the presence of God. What an honor that was!
Daddy had seen three of his siblings suffer greatly in their battles against cancer, and he began to pray that when his days were numbered on this earth, he would simply die in his
sleep. God answered his prayer—not on some random day, but on the day we celebrate our Heavenly Father’s birth.
I could not appreciate that massive blessing as long as I was anchored to my grief as my last vestige of connection to Daddy.
In some ways, I realized that my remembrance of and connection to my past transgressions were also keeping me in a state of repentance. I mistakenly thought that if I let go of the grief and guilt of my sin, it would mean I was no longer sorry for it. Nothing could be farther from the truth.
The promises of forgiveness we receive from God are the complete abolishment of those sins. They are gone. Gone. Along with them, their related guilt and shame are banished as well.
I realized that remembering my sins had zero value except to punish me further, bring back visions of sinful behavior, and please Satan.
Those realizations brought me to the door of my own true forgiveness. I could either walk through it and shut the past behind me, or I could leave it cracked open, inviting Satan a way back in to reopen it fully. I chose not only to shut it, but to deadlock it, leaving Satan no access.
By God’s grace and for His glory alone, I am able to look forward with joy and anticipation as to how this newly found freedom will unfold.
Now I walk, looking forward, into the light of His redemptive love—the very reason He went to the cross in the first place. I claim His goodness and faithfulness as my future, not my failures. I believe this is taking my thoughts captive and releasing them as I hold tightly to the God who loves me and has held me so tightly all the years of my life.
My past sins no longer hold power over me.
Daily, as I ask forgiveness for any sins that might have hindered my walk, I know unquestionably they are forgiven and washed away. I am now free to live out my golden years as a joyful soul, filled with the Holy Spirit who leads, guides, and directs me.
I am standing on the promises that buoy me on my journey toward the streets of gold, where my loved ones who have gone before me wait to welcome me, where my treasures lie, and where my God and Savior waits with arms flung wide to welcome me home.
What a great piece Deborah! Thank you for sharing!!!
