The Beauty of Repentance

"Guilt and shame always say that there is no hope, but the sorrow that comes with repentance told me that hope is all I have…I confuse grief and sadness with shame and hopelessness, when it's necessary that I sit in grief. The sadness is hard but important along a journey of hope. When I bypass repentance's sorrow, the sadness turns to despair. Repentance is a sorrow toward one's own sin, a recognized need, and a change of heart. Repentance is the turning point, a place of very active transformation and also a place of release…

Repentance is not living in heaped-up shame…It isn't about how much I give away or how much I'm willing to suffer. Rather repentance is the grieving of something lost or something that feels wasted; it's the recognition that you chased other desires when you could've had God - your satisfaction - all along. 

There is sorrow that comes in repentance, but it's a comforting kind of sorrow that brings rest and release."

                                 - Amber Haines in Wild In the Hollow