It was a random Friday night during my late 20s, driving my little navy blue Nissan Sentra with manual locks and windows and pop-on hub caps. I was on my way home from some shindig or another, just me in the car…listening to the radio, singing along and mind racing and just wanting to be home already.

It must have been a song on the radio from the radio station playing Friday Night 80s that triggered All The Thoughts. The thoughts of stupid, reckless, crazy things I had done in high school. Which morphed into the stupider, more reckless and crazier things I did in college. Which morphed into the straight up asinine things I did as a young adult.

All The Thoughts suddenly flashed across my mind like a rapid-fire slide show — in that dreamlike technicolor-slash-Polaroid transfer imagery — and as I began to relive each moment, and the possible outcomes of every single moment, I felt God whisper,

I was there. 

And I began pouring shame all over myself. Shame and guilt because of All The Sin, but then shock and bewilderment took over as I realized every single gentle outcome. With each passing scenario playing out in the movie in my mind, awe and wonder overcame me at how nothing that should have happened to me happened. How in every single instance the outcome should have been painful, or dire, or deadly —  yet instead suddenly ceased, was non-existent, finished.

Click over here to keep reading — I’m sharing the story Be Still Be Free today. 

In this week’s podcast, we explore what it means to BE MERCIFUL, not show acts of mercy without possessing mercy in our hearts.

Have an incredibly merciful week. I love you.