The Cookie Jar Theory

I have always had a hard time with the idea of God forgiving all of our 'sins'. Especially with the 'sins' we repeat time and time again. I have asked people of faith many times about what I call my Cookie Jar Theory and they have answered but their answers never made enough sense to me to be able to let go of my question, how can God really forgive us our 'sins'. I believed I have recently come to that answer within myself.

My Cookie Jar Theory is simple: The Cookie Jar is filled with cookies and your Mom tells you not to have any. Although you cannot seem to resist the desire to have a cookie. You apologize afterwards and you are forgiven. If you keep on taking a cookie and you keep on asking for forgiveness eventually your Mom is not going to believe you are truly sorry, because you keep on producing the same type of behavior, you can't really be sorry. My question comes from this idea: If I say I'm sorry but I cannot seem to stop my improper behavior then eventually I will no longer be forgive, so how can God truly love and forgive me?

Like I said this is a question I have asked time and time again and I have never gotten an answer I felt happy with, until now. I just realized today today that God does forgive every time we do anything, the ones who don't forgive is ourselves. Because we, some of us, believe ourselves to be unworthy of forgiveness we do not allow it into our lives. We can ask forgiveness until the cows come home but if we are unable to allow forgiveness in we will never truly find it.

The Cookie Jar theory is simple, God will always forgive us. God knows us beyond what we know of ourselves. I believe God sees the struggle we go through within ourselves, in God knowing and seeing our inward struggle God sees that we truly are sorry, even if we are unable at the time to change our behavior. I also believe God never denies us forgiveness, we deny ourselves. I don't believe God looks at our lives and expects us to ask for forgiveness. This is a journey, it's an experience, we each are going to run it to many different situations, good and bad and we are here to experience what this life has to offer.

I believe God is our creator, our Father in Heaven and that all God wants from us is to live this life with the understanding that we are connected. We are connected to God and to everyone else by God. I believe once we understand that and the fact that no matter what we do we will go back to God in the end, then we will start to be kinder to ourselves. I believe this life is not a test or a lesson, this is an experience. A wonderful opportunity to create a life in the way we want to. An opportunity to be free and know, if we can grasp the knowing, that we are always safe, always protected and always loved by God. God did not abandon us on this Earth, God created this Earth for us. We are connected and attached. We are meant to be and show the love of God through ourselves and we can only truly do that when we learn to love ourselves as God loves us completely and wholly without and judgement or persecution.

I encourage you all to consider this idea.

In Loving Inspiration,

Micah

What did I learn

I went out for the first time in a very long time this past weekend. I got drunk and paid for it the next morning by being severely sick, not good. What I want to write about is what I have learned about myself from that experience.

Let me start by saying that in another life, when I was a different version of myself, I was a VERY flirtatious girl :) That's putting things mildly, I am, and always have been, an insane flirt! I love attention, and I love men, put them together and what you get is flirt. Actually back in the day, I was way more than a flirt, I was straight up player! Without going into too much detail I got hurt emotionally at a young age and instead of letting the pain go I let it harden within my heart. I decided I could play 'the game' better than any boy and I proved it. I had swagger most girls never dream of having :)

I smile and laugh about it now because I refuse to feel shame. It was a time in my life and I will never persecute myself for that behavior. I was hurt, I believed that all men viewed women as was sexual gratification and I decided I could work with that. I refused to even consider that a man would want more of me than what I could physically give, and I also decided I wanted nothing more of them then what they could physically give. For me that worked for a long time. No feelings or emotion just physical pleasure.

What I learned about myself on this recent outing is that I have grown. Of course I am still a mad flirt but I do not look at myself as someone not worthy of emotion or feelings attached to physical affection. I know now that I will not settle for what I once found to be acceptable, and even preferred at the time.

I am worth attention. I have always been worth affection. I am worth kindness and pleasure in my life. I know now that I allowed myself to believe that I was worth less. I believed that my soul didn't require or desire an intimate connection, I was wrong.

So yes, a very tiny amount of old school Micah showed herself at the bar this weekend :) and I have a choice I can either degrade myself for months and not allow myself to go back out or I can smile at myself and realize that yes all of my behavior wasn't great but you live and you learn. I allow myself room for growth, and that room includes space for correction of certain behaviors.

I am pleased that I am not hiding in the sand beating myself for the tiniest of infractions. I will encourage myself to try again, and with time I will learn the appropriate behavior I want to portray.



Living Inspired,

Micah