Sister, what mistake or sin have you been holding onto?

You know, that one thing that you keep berating yourself for. Are you constantly playing out different scenarios of how things could have been different - while battling feelings of guilt, shame, or foolishness? Are you afraid to make choices, even beneficial ones, because of it?

You may have told yourself that you've moved on, but the endless cycle in your head says otherwise. And, friend, I know exactly where you're at.

Jesus recently pointed out this exact issue to me - and what I needed to do. Turns out, I needed to forgive myself. Jesus has made it clear that He wants to take my growth to new heights in 2022...but that's not possible if I'm still dragging this issue behind me.

Grab a cup of hot chocolate, sister, and join me as I share exactly what Jesus revealed to me - and why it is absolutely vital to our growth (and our walk with Jesus as a whole) that we forgive ourselves.

Show Notes:

• Intro

  • So let me begin by sharing what happened to me this past weekend - and what led to this episode.

  • Per God’s strong prompting, I had signed-up for a virtual Dreamer’s Summit hosted by a Christian entrepreneur. It’s the first time I had the chance to attend something like this. And I felt like God really wanted me to attend; that this was really important. And I also felt like God was planting this desire in me to dream. To dream in general - but to specifically dream as I go into 2022.

  • So I signed-up for this Dreamer’s Summit - and it was amazing. It was a three day event. But immediately, in just those first couple sessions on opening night, God was hitting me with some hardcore truth, and confirmation, and information, and fresh perspective...all the things. I was like, “Ok, God. I totally get why you wanted me here!”

  • And God did this in that way of His where He weaves things together so perfectly. Because the Christian entrepreneur who was hosting the Dreamer Summit, started out by sharing the theme for this year’s summit - which was growth. 

  • And then she went into how our growth is determined by our roots. Our roots determine our future. And she posed the question: What is nourishing you? In other words, what are our roots?

  • And we can be rooted in a lot of things - positive and negative. And the negative idols can include things like idols, fear, things from our past, mistakes we’ve made, etc. 

  • But to the host’s point...as Christians, we are called to be rooted in God’s love. And to be rooted in His love, there are 4 key steps:

    • Cast off (severe things that need to be removed) 

    • Humbly repent 

    • Accept the beautiful grace of love

    • Abide in love

  • Now, God’s love is the best nourishment we can have. It’s the best root system we can have. So the question is: what do we need to cast off?

  • And then she went into some specific questions:

    • What do you need to let go of?

    • Who do you need to forgive?

    • What fears are holding you back?

  • And when I went to answer the question of “What do you need to let go of?” … My response was centered around the time period a few years ago where I ended up drifting from God. 

  • Some of you may have heard me speak about this time period in other episodes. I’ve gone in-depth in certain episodes. But in a nutshell, I ended up drifting from God. And at the same time, I was pursuing being an entrepreneur. But not from a place of discerning God’s calling for me. Or His will. In addition, I got sucked into this online entrepreneurial space that’s full of ideas like manifestation, and spending thousands of dollars on coaching or courses no matter how successful, or unsuccessful, your business is. A lot of people there are clearly working for the other team. And I ended up aligning with these ideas and these people...and amassing a huge amount of debt. And I’ve always been someone who wanted to be debt free. 

  • Now, God has since brought me back into a close relationship with Him. In fact, we’re the closest we’ve ever been. And He’s done a lot of work in me. I’m not the same person I was when I made those poor choices.

  • I know this in my head. But I hadn’t let go of it. I hadn’t moved past it. And this exercise was proof of it.

  • When I typed out my answer (on my Google doc) to the question “What do you need to let go of?” … that’s where my mind went. I need to let go of this period, where I made many big mistakes - starting with the biggest of all that started it all, which was drifting from God.

  • And then I moved on to the next question: “Who do you need to forgive?” I started typing out a list. There were several people on it. But do you know who I put down first? “Myself.” 

  • It was becoming clear that I hadn’t moved past this issue, these series of mistakes, because I hadn’t forgiven myself. I still felt guilty, and stupid, and foolish, and ashamed. And I kept thinking about how off course I got. And how could I have done that? All the things.

  • Now, as a side note, I also included on my list the “entrepreneurs that I bought courses and coaching from.” Because forgiving them was also an important part of this, too. 

  • I couldn’t move on if I didn’t forgive myself - and I couldn’t move on if I didn’t forgive them too. Most of these entrepreneurs that I had bought from or quote/unquote “invested in” had only really been in it for the money. They didn’t want to help me - not really. 

  • But I had to forgive them. And pray for them. Because if you really think about it, these folks are living without Jesus. And all the money in the world can’t make up for not knowing God or Jesus or what a true life of freedom looks and feels like. 

  • Alright, so back to the three questions. After answering the first two (What do you need to let go of? and Who do you need to forgive?), I moved onto the third: What fears are holding you back?

  • Oooh. Good one, right? And guess what? God knew there was a theme. He knew I needed a process. Guess what my answer was connected to? Yep - my other two answers. God was drilling down.

  • My greatest fear, I typed out, was making the same kinds of bad financial decisions I had made before - alluding back to when I spent thousands of dollars that I didn’t have and got myself into debt. And I was afraid of stepping back into being entrepreneurial. Even though God was - and is - completely directing my steps this time.

  • See, after getting myself into a mess, God came back into my life and told me at the beginning of 2020 that my business was His mission. He then told me to stop working on my business - which was called Relate Escape, like it is now, but it was something completely different.

  • God told me to stop working on the business, which wasn’t going anywhere (which I now know to be God’s grace), and focus on Him. And He put me into a wilderness season in order to get my back into a relationship with Him and into the Bible. We got reacquainted and He put me in a place where I had to rely on Him. Where He had to come through. 

  • And when that wilderness season ended, God gave me an entirely new vision for Relate Escape that was based on His mission and His calling for my life - and, within that, how I’m wired and what makes me happy. (Which is not how my initial concept was - on top of not being aligned with God.)

  • God gave me an overall vision and specific downloads. And Relate Escape became something completely different. And a few months ago, I launched the podcast and the website and God told me to buy a very small, inexpensive Pinterest course from a Christian entrepreneur that I also originally bought my podcast course from. And one that God has ministered to me through via her own podcast. But He told me to buy her little course and for me to get on Pinterest to help drive traffic to my website and podcast.

  • So I’ve dipped my toes back into the entrepreneurial waters. But my brain and my heart have been attached to all the yuckiness from before. To the bad decisions, and the wasted money, and the years of trying to make something work that never worked.

  • And so when I answered the question, What fears are holding you back? I was fearing that I would repeat history - even though I knew that I was different. And that this time, everything is God directed and I’m simply doing as He tells me. Which makes all the difference.

  • I needed to let go of this past season of horrible mistakes. I needed to forgive myself. And I needed to combat the fear with Scripture and with truth.

  • Because if I didn’t do those things, I wouldn’t be able to grow. I wouldn’t be able to move forward and be the Jesus empowered maiden, or be the empowered entrepreneur that serves and impacts who knows how many women. Only God knows, right?

  • I can’t hold myself back and grow. If my roots are roots of fear, and guilt, and replaying my mistakes over and over and over in my head... I can’t grow. I can’t become the person God wants me to be.

  • And I won’t have the most nourishing root - which is God’s love. Because God isn’t endlessly playing my sins or mistakes on some endless blooper reel. He’s not holding it against me. God loves me. Jesus loves me. He wants me to keep growing and keep becoming. That’s why He compelled me to sign-up for this Dreamer’s Summit.

  • But I have to accept that grace and love. I have to accept that Jesus is beckoning me forward without holding my past against me. It’s just love. There’s only love.

  • So whatever is keeping me from that endless love...it needs cast aside. Cut off. Pruned and burned. It just needs to go!

  • And this applies to any sin or mistake, however big or small that we see it, in our lives. If it’s a nasty root, keeping you from moving forward, it needs to be cast aside so that your main root is God’s love.

  • And here’s how great God’s love is. How He will go the extra mile for you, sister.

  • So earlier, at the beginning of this episode, I mentioned how God did something for me at this Dreamer’s Summit in the way only He can do. You know that way He has of just lining things up perfectly?

  • During that first night of opening sessions, the host shared all the things I’ve talked about. About growth, and what we need to do to abide in God’s love, and the questions that revealed to me that I was still rooted in my past mistakes.

  • Well, that opening night there was also a guest speaker. And the big idea of her talk was that there are God dreams...and then there are our own dreams. Dreams that we end up pursuing that aren’t aligned with God’s calling for us. 

  • They’re things that we somehow end up chasing, or we get off track (like I did), or some other reason. We start a business or go after a dream of another sort...and it’s ridiculously hard because it’s not what we’re meant to do. It’s not God’s calling; it’s not aligned with how we’re wired. Try as we might, it’s a big fat nightmare, mess, or no-go.

  • And that talk one, gave me clarity. Because I knew the root of my bad choices was drifting from God. But this made it clearer, somehow. Just gave it a little more context.

  • And two, it was like God was saying, “Hey. Chasing dreams isn’t bad. It’s just you were chasing the wrong dreams. And now you’re back in my fold, in alignment with Me, and walking out My calling for you. This is the right place to dream. You’re in the right place.”

  • So within the span of a couple hours, God was not only putting a spotlight on what bad roots needed to go; on what things I needed to do - starting with forgiving myself. But He wasn’t okay with just leaving me there. Nope. God was also encouraging me. And telling me to dream. Because I’m in the right place to dream.

  • And like I said at the beginning of this episode, I felt that one of the main reasons God wanted me to attend this Dreamer’s Summit was to get me to a place where I not just dream - but dream big. Especially going into next year.

  • So He didn’t stop pruning. He was pruning and spurring healthy growth at the same time. He’s like, “We could leave this for tomorrow. But, no. You’re going to bed with a whole new outlook on dreaming for your life.”

  • God wanted me to forgive myself. To stop berating myself. To stop feeling stupid and guilty. He didn’t want any of that for me! He wants me to dream big, and fly high, and let Him take me to heights I can’t even fathom!

  • Friend, sitting in a cycle of reliving your mistakes and berating your past choices is not what God wants. It’s not. If it’s something you need to repent for, by all means do so. But then lay it down at the feet of Jesus and leave it there.

  • We can’t follow Jesus into the Christian woman and the Jesus empowered woman we are meant to be if we stay stuck, clinging to old rotted roots that we can’t change. Those things are in the past. But what we do have control over is our future. And I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to look back three months from now, or a year from now, or five years from now and regret not forgiving myself and letting go. I don’t want to miss things in my future because I won’t let go of my past. Or let go of that previous version of Jenn who made those mistakes because I’m not her anymore.

  • And I don’t want that for you, either.

  • Now, I normally like to end an episode on a hardcore truth. But, I’m going to mix that with some humor this time. Because...God has a sense of humor. So does Jesus. They both laugh at me a lot - and it’s not always because I’m funny. But God did one more thing after the Dreamer’s Summit to totally drive the point home that I’m not that previous version of Jenn.

  • The last big quote/unquote investment I had made before God stepped back into my life to set me to rights was with this coaching couple. And it became clear later on that they were more about getting rich than actually helping people - the wife in particular.

  • I haven’t had anything to do with them since God came back into my life. And that included unsubscribing from their email lists.

  • Well, a few days after the Dreamer’s Summit, I got this email from the wife. It wasn’t in their typical email template - which was odd. And it was really weird in general. I almost wondered later if Jesus made this email Himself, just to send to me to get His point across.

  • Anyway, the email had a photo of the wife standing in front of this throne-like chair that looked like something from a movie set or museum. And the message, which was fairly short, basically asked if she could sign me up for her something-or-other so she could help me “get rich.” She used those exact words.

  • And you know what my reaction was? I burst out laughing and said out loud, “No you may not!” And then I promptly hit “delete.”

  • The whole thing was so ludicrous to me. And it was in that moment that Jesus showed me, through this little email surprise exercise, that I was not who I was a couple years ago. Because a couple years ago, my reaction would have been completely different to that email.

  • And I also didn’t go into a place of lamenting over what I had done. Because after that first night at the Dreamer’s Summit, I had prayed over what I needed to let go of; and I prayed for forgiveness for myself, and I prayed over my fears of moving forward. And I had opened myself up to dreaming with God. And so instead of that email triggering a cycle of berating myself...it triggered laughter, and joy, and a sense of knowing that that past was now the past.

  • Which means I can run forward into the future, and God’s dreams for me, with joy, laughter, and abandon.