Every since I was a child, I’ve always felt…wrong. Everything I did was wrong. Everything I said was wrong. I even looked wrong. Everyone around me always seemed to know the right thing to do and say and here I was – Lil’ Miss Awkward, wanting to badly to fit in and be accepted by those around me. I couldn’t measure up. Worse were the people in my life confirming my worst fears by either telling me to my face how weird I was or just walking completely out of my life without any explanation.
So, how did I cope? I began to apologize. For everything.
I said ‘I’m sorry’ for the things I said and the things I didn’t say. I said ‘I’m sorry’ for the things I did and for the things I didn’t do. I apologized for my immaturity and I apologized as I began to mature.
It started out being situational. I would say ‘I’m sorry’ in specific situations, like when a friend tripped over the sidewalk and I didn’t stop her from falling. Or if we were grading each other’s papers in school and I had to mark wrong an incorrect answer to a question.
I didn’t even know I was taking responsibility for things that didn’t even concern me. I just kept apologizing over and over. Before long, it wasn’t situational: it was personal. No longer was I sorry for things that went wrong but I was sorry for being wrong.
The phrase “I’m sorry” had become part of my everyday language to the point I didn’t even know what I was apologizing for.
I still don’t.
This habit has been hard to break and I still struggle with it today. It’s only been recently that I’ve discovered how much this lifelong habit has bled into my relationship with God. All these years I’ve spent apologizing has somehow translated and morphed into….I’m not good enough. How can God ever love me when I’m just not good enough?
Sound familiar? Has being sorry become a part of your personality, too?
If it has, let me share some good news with you. God’s not having it anymore! We’re too busy! Listen, if God’s Word is the antidote to what’s going on in the world – and it is – then we don’t have time for apologies to be part of who we are. We’ve apologized enough.
So how do we break this cycle? Two big important things were super helpful for me and I hope they will be to you.
The first thing God did was to reveal how hurtful this was to me. God didn’t create me to be sorry about my life. He created me to be victorious. Even named me Victoria! Jeremiah 29:11 is all about God hoping and planning good things for me. To be sorry for who I am is to be sorry about how God made me and that goes against what God says about me and to me. God said to me, “You’re not sorry; YOU ARE MINE.”
So now, whenever I say, ‘I’m sorry’, God says, “Are you really? Did you do something wrong? Is there something that’s really yours to repent from? Or are you sorry just out of habit.”
God expects me to be intentional when it comes to living life His way. Philippians 4:9 says,
“Keep putting into practice all you learned and received from me—everything you heard from me and saw me doing. Then the God of peace will be with you.”
The second thing he did was to pull me out of my comfort zone and gave me a mission, so to speak. When the idea of Faith Love N Joy first came to me, I began telling God how I’m not good enough to do this. I began telling Him how sorry I am and that I will most likely fail. No one will read this. No one will care.
God said two things to me:
First, He reminded me of who I am to Him. I’m His daughter (John 1:12). I’m a joint-heir with Jesus (Romans 8:17). I am loved by the King of Kings (John 3:16). I’m a princess of Heaven (Proverbs 45:6)
Then He told me scores of people don’t have to read this – just the ones that need it. He wasn’t expecting perfection from me; He was expecting obedience.
I didn’t have to say sorry. I did have to say yes.
I am who God says I am.
I apologize to no one for being that.
Faith Love n Joy 