“Try as we might to control our discomfort by containing our inefficiencies or clawing for answers to all our questions, we simply won’t ever have 100% comfort as long as we’re human.” — Amy Hunt, Founder and Vision Leader, C’est La Vie: The Magazine
I’ll never get used to the way secrets are locked up. The way they make you cower under their power. The way they hiss horrible-nothings in your soul. You believe they’re better behind closed doors to never see light of day.
There was a time in my life that I hid. I literally hid in closets as a child but I kept hiding as an adult too. This may be why I made those mistakes. The ones that haunted me for years, deep in my gut and soul. Mistakes can grab hold of me, re-name me, and silence me.
I’m a Christian, now. But I went through many sins, many mistakes, many wrong decisions. I wish I could say I did it alone. But I did not. It’s taken time to be set free. It’s taken more time to stay free. Only when I look at Christ and not at others, do I remember it. Really truly remember His banner of love over me and actually know that I know that, I know.
Self-hatred slips in when you least expect it. It’s subtle. The enemy sneaks in the back door when we meditate one second too long, linger one minute too many on a wrong we’ve long been forgiven for.
C’est La Vie: The Magazine is “a sprawling declaration of raw worship through gritty, brazen, undisputed, fully human storytelling. C’est La Vie: The Magazine celebrates no-limits grace that frees and unleashes all people to embrace life, as. it. is.”
I wrote about forgiving ourselves, at C’est La Vie: The Magazine’s debut edition. As a prodigal parent, I walked a long twisted road and I took my people with me. Fear and Secrets are long standing friends. But we can climb out of the dark pit. We can break up them up. And we can become intimate with the grace and redemption the sets us free.
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Seeking to dethrone the typical, glossy magazine that tells us how to have the perfect body, children, house, marriage, sex, life, suggesting our isn’t good enough, C’est La Vie: The Magazine, reminds us that our greatest offering is to unwrap the grace to simply be, as. we. are., resting in the truth that God purposes and refines us for His glory.
