I come from a Catholic background. I grew up saying “For what we are about to receive, may the Lord make us truly thankful’ before meals”. I ate the ‘host’, I did confession, we lit the candles during lent, and ate fish on Fridays. I went to a school with a weekly mass and was taught by a lot of nuns.
Anyhoo, I am an ex-catholic, hence I get Catholic guilt.
Also I am a woman, hence I give myself too much to do and slam myself when I don’t measure up.
Because I am a Christian, so I long to serve God well and to love others, so when I fail, I get down on myself.
Guilt
I struggle with guilt sometimes. I forget that Jesus Christ has made it so that I can be fully accepted by God. I forget that my relationship with God is not dependant on my ‘performance’ over the last week. It utterly slips my mind that if I do wrong or fail to meet my own (usually overwhelming) expectations, that God does not hold this against me.
I’m reading a great book called ‘The Grace Awakening’. Cheesy? Yes, fully matured. American? Supersized. Biblical and True? Absoloutely.
I’m being walked through Romans and Galatians and reminded that the cost of our sin against God was paid in full by our God, Jesus Christ.The worst thing about being crushed under a load of guilt is that we can begin to crush others under the same weight. Judge people on how much they pray, or how often they have bible study, or even how close they ‘feel’ to God.
What does everyone else think?
