My advice:
If you just clicked on this and have no time to read, just scroll down to the bottom, and watch the video … it is just that good!
It had been so long, so very long, since it had happened, since I had even thought those thoughts, and yet, out of the blue there it was again, as if no time had passed.
I had thought that I had turned my back on the past and that it would stay there … but here it was, and I was feeling all that I had felt before.
As I sat in the driver seat of my vehicle, I felt like anything but the driver. I put my head back closed my eyes and moaned, “why does this keep haunting me? when will it go away?”
The ‘it’ was sin. A sin of the past, one that I had acknowledged, repented of, and was forgiven. Yet, here it was again stalking me like some deranged killer, eager to snuff the life from me.
I wondered if this struggle was like the “thorn in the flesh” (2 Corinthians 12:7) that Paul had experienced. He referred to it as “a messenger of Satan to torment me” that helped to keep him humble. Well, I am not sure if my sin of the past is keeping me humble, but it certainly drives me to my knees!
For a week or more the guilt of this sin was haunting me. It was there when I went to bed, and when I work up. It was everywhere, and all the time. I was easily able to relate to Romans 7:21-24 “although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. What a wretched man/woman I am!” I just wanted it to go away!
And then, while driving in my van a couple of weeks later, as so often is the case, the voice of Truth spoke to me, loud and clear. It was through a song I had not heard (or had not needed to hear) before, but the message I received from it, I believe, answered my cry, “who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Romans 7:25).
It answers the cry of all of our hearts!
Redeemed
“to restore the honor, worth, or reputation of”
American Heritage Dictionary
itsawonderfilledlife 
Isn’t it amazing how we come back and bite ourselves in the rear? Shame is sometimes one of the hardest things to shake off of our own shoulders. Realizing that Christ took all that shame for our sins on His shoulders is often unimaginable…but, I’m thankful He did.
Amen to that Winnie! I think shame is the master tool of Satan to keep us from accepting the forgiveness that God has offered us.
Carole