Dear Lord Jesus,
I pray that today leads me to a renewed sense of self and strength as a Christian woman. I pray that the people from my past are healed by the Lord in their hatred of me.
Brief background - The person I was almost 3 years ago is not who I am today. I wasn't terrible, but could have changed a lot about who I was to not be so selfish and self-centered. I was a daily drug user, promiscuous and definitely not a Christian.
While I am still a sinner because I am not married (but in a committed relationship living with the father of my beautiful child), curse from time to time, etc. ... I accepted Jesus as my Lord and Savior about 2.5 years ago. In that time, I chose to let go of my friendships with some really beautiful people because they were drug addicts and gay. I chose to close the door on my drug addiction for good and have not looked back. These choices were in order to focus on my relationship with the father of my child and to raise our son with Christian values in a Christian home.
The challenge I face everyday is knowing I hurt people I was close to by ending our friendships. I am ridiculed by the group of people I ended my life with to pursue a new life as a Christian. I was told today that I "represent everything opposite of yoga; dishonesty, selfishness, close mindedness and stupidity. and your negative energy should not be out their for people to experience." I taught and still teach yoga from time to time ... Which has been greatly embraced by my Christian and non-Christian brothers and sisters. It hurts to hear the people in my past judge me out of their own hurt. They don't even know the person I am today.
I am hurt and sad that now I will be remembered by some people as an awful human being. People that I used to be friends with hate me for becoming a Christian. I have no way to be a servant to Christ to them because they think I judged them by ending the friendship. It's very hard to hear the things being said about me .... I pray for them daily and pray that they will somehow forgive me for making the choice I did. Although, I don't think it has helped. The venom is fierce.
And yet my new friends (it took me a while to create a network of Christian and some non-christian friends who are still of service to one another but just not saved), are very positive. They are prayer warriors, mothers, parents, joyful people of service to the Lord ... not drug addicts or judgmental of me.
God, please help me to have deliverance of this pain I feel from the choice I made. Please God help them to forgive me for leaving my old friendships behind. Please God help them in their own life to be of service to you and to your will. God I pray that as I confess my faults to you daily, you will help me to be a better person.
- Amen.