S E21: Episode 21 | I am the broken woman at Jesus’ feet: My story of brokenness and redemption

Hey there, and welcome back to the True Grit podcast.

I am your host, Rachel Grit, and this is the first long podcast I've done in a while.

I'm not sure how long it's going to be, but I was really struck by something that we talked about in church a couple weeks ago, and I've kind of been mulling it over in my head, and I wanted to kind of share my story, dig into how I went from being, you know, the good Christian kid who had grown up in the church, gone to Christian school, all of that, to being a completely broken sinner at the feet of Jesus.

So we talked in church a couple weeks ago about the prostitute who comes to Jesus and pours this incredibly expensive perfume on his feet, cries tears on his feet, wipes his feet with her hair.

And it just.

It reminded me so much of my own story.

And so I wanted to talk through that passage of Scripture, kind of share how it relates to my story, and hopefully that can be encouraging to you.

It's.

It's honestly also a really good look for us at Christians to how we can get to this place of feeling like we are safe, feeling like we are good enough because we claim the name of Jesus, and how that's really missing the point of salvation, of redemption, of sin, Jesus, sacrifice, all of that.

So without further ado, let's go ahead and get into it.

I'm going to start by reading the story, which is in Luke 7, 36, 50.

And I'm in the English Standard Version, so we'll start with verse 36.

Here.

One of the Pharisees asked him to eat with him.

And he went into the Pharisee's house and reclined at table.

And behold, a woman of the city who was a sinner.

When she learned that he was reclining at table in the Pharisee's house, brought an alabaster flask of ointment.

And standing behind him at his feet, weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears and wiped them with the hair of her head and kissed his feet and anointed them with the ointment.

Now, when the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, if this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what sort of woman this is, who is touching him, for she is a sinner.

And Jesus answering, said to him, simon, I have something to say to you.

And he answered, say it, Teacher.

A certain money lender had two debtors.

One owed 500 denarii and the other 50.

When they could not pay.

He canceled the debt of both.

Now which of them will love him more?

Simon answered, the one, I suppose, for whom he cancelled the larger debt.

And he said to him, you have judged rightly.

Then turning to the woman, he said to Simon, do you see this woman?

I entered your house.

You gave me no water for my feet, but she has wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair.

You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in, she has not ceased to kiss my feet.

You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment.

Therefore I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven.

For she loved much, but he who is forgiven little loves little.

And he said to her, your sins are forgiven.

Then those who were at the table with him began to say among themselves, who is this who even forgives sins?

And he said to the woman, your faith has saved you go in peace.

This story, like, obviously I've known it my entire life, since I grew up in the church and have been reciting Bible verses since I was three years old.

But this one hit me in the face in a very fresh way when our pastor was reading it the other day because I can so relate to this woman.

And honestly, the Pharisee, who at first is like, dude, who, why are you, why are you participating in anything with this absolute sinner, meanwhile being completely oblivious to his own sin.

So like I said, I had grown up in the church, went to Christian school, married my high school sweetheart who I met at Christian school, but didn't actually make my faith my own until about two years into that marriage.

I had really struggled, like, struggled so incredibly much with needing a lot of male attention and validation.

And when I was 19, right before my now ex husband and I got engaged, I had gotten myself into several situations where, you know, flirting went a little bit too far and I pretty much, if a guy was going to give me attention, I was going to eat it up.

And there was a situation where I had been volunteering at a summer camp for, for kids with diabetes as part of, I was going into dietitian school.

And that was, we had to have some nutrition related volunteering hours.

And so I had stayed at this overnight camp and ended up meeting this guy.

I was 19 at the, @ that point he was about to turn 30, so he's the age that I am right now, which anyways, and this guy and I clicked, just immediately clicked.

He was in the middle of going through a divorce from his own high school Sweetheart.

And he and I just instantly became best friends.

And there was definitely a little bit more there than either of us was wanting to admit.

And so at night, what the entire med staff would do was just go out and drink.

And again, at this point, I'm 19 years old, I am not legal to drink.

But that did not stop people from buying and supplying me alcohol, including this guy.

And so, as you can probably imagine, being in a really difficult relationship, coupled with just basing a lot of my self worth on male validation, coupled with meeting another, like, hurting soul who also was looking for attention and then couple that with alcohol, some things ended up happening, which, honestly, I. I don't even know the full extent of because I would get blackout drunk pretty much every single night that I was at this camp.

Um, and so, you know, during the day, when there was no alcohol involved, it was very much like, okay, this, like, we're just friends.

We're gonna, you know, we need to get a handle on this.

Everything's fine.

Everything's fine.

I'm still about to get married to this guy.

Well, I.

We were about to get engaged.

My high school sweetheart and I, at that point were about to get engaged.

There was very much this tension between, I know this plan that I have built for my life, and I don't want to screw this plan up by admitting that something happened that shouldn't have happened because it was a really sketchy and honestly, predatory situation.

But at the same time, I very much put myself in that situation and I knew what I was doing.

I was using alcohol as plausible deniability to act on feelings that I had and wanted to act on, while also being able to blame something other than myself.

So I knew what I was doing.

I knew that I was putting myself in this situation and that one plus one was going to equal two, that something physical was going to happen between me and the sky, but I would have some sort of plausible deniability.

And so that went on for a couple of weeks and then I ended up getting engaged.

And at that point I was like, okay, you know what?

I'm going to be getting married.

I'm going to take this super seriously.

I'm going to cut off all contact with this guy.

I'm going to really work on my issues with needing male attention and validation.

And from that point forward, I was, you could say, like, perfect as far as, like, I did not look at a guy twice.

I was so focused on not giving the wrong signal.

I basically was trying to make up for what I had done.

With my own actions.

And that holding on to that secret severed any connection, any genuine connection that there was between me and God, because I knew that I was holding on to this lie.

My then fiance constantly would be asking me, like, I know something's going on.

And this, this had happened our entire relationship.

You know, he had had some stuff happen to him in his life.

Um, and so he was a very mistrusting person.

So even before anything had happened, there were constantly these questions of, like, did you cheat on me?

Is something going on?

I know something's going on.

You need to tell me.

So then when.

By the time there was something to tell, it was just eating me alive.

And it got to the point where I basically decided to choose my partner over God.

I was like, okay, you know what?

I screwed up.

I made this mistake.

And so I need to own that I'm not going to tell him because that would have disastrous consequences.

And I want to protect him.

So I am just going to essentially forego a relationship with God in order to protect my partner.

And so we got married.

And we were married for about two years.

And then right after I graduated college, we ended up moving to Guatemala.

He had his best friend who lived down there.

And so we moved down to Guatemala.

And during this entire time period, God was just calling on my heart and calling on my heart and calling on my heart.

It had gotten to the point where I could not sit in church without having, like, a physical, visceral reaction.

I was like crawling out of my skin if there was worship music playing.

Being in church was just like, I just need to show, shut my senses down because this is too much.

I can't have this.

So I just need to act like this doesn't exist.

This being, you know, God, all things spiritual.

And I was riddled with anxiety.

I actually started going to a therapist for the first time to try and deal with this anxiety.

It wasn't anxiety, it was guilt.

I was absolutely racked with guilt over this secret that I was holding.

And so I graduated college, we moved down to Guatemala, and for the first time, just the.

I think it was like a combination of the slower pace of life.

I had a very predictable schedule.

It pretty much was, you know, Monday through Friday, go to the office, get work done.

Because my ex husband had like a sales and marketing consulting business that we both worked for.

And we had a small team down there.

And so we would go to our office, we would work, I would walk to the market, get our food.

I record YouTube videos on Saturdays, edit them on Sundays, and then the whole week would start over.

And I honestly think that just kind of the quietness of that life made room for God's voice to amplify and amplify and amplify.

And I had been watching YouTube videos from a girl who actually went to our church and watching her talk about her faith.

I. I honestly became so incredibly jealous of her.

I was like, you know what?

I wish I could have this.

I can't have this.

But I. I wish I could have what she has.

And over time, I just started to crumble.

I wanted what she had so badly.

I just had this craving in my soul for God.

I had.

I had spent my entire life listening to Bible stories and singing Jesus loves me and reciting Bible verses.

I had so much knowledge in my head, and I had technically been saved and technically been baptized, but for the first time in my life, I was just craving what I felt I could not have.

And so things came to a head one day, and the conversation came up again.

If I know there's something you're not telling me.

And so I just.

It.

Do you ever have it where you just end up saying something before your brain can stop you?

And then you're like, oh, shoot, did I really just say that?

And so I just came out with it and I shared everything, and he was devastated, and we threw a lot of, you know, tears and explanations, and I just got everything out.

I, like, explained to him every single time something like this had happened, every single time, you know, flirting had gone too far, and, well, which flirting is going too far regardless.

So I, like.

I laid it all out and we decided we were going to work on our marriage and ended up going into the office for the day.

And I still remember being on my phone, on the walk to the office, just googling Bible studies and ordering a Bible off of Amazon to be there at home when we were gonna be leaving Guatemala and downloading Bible apps and listening to worship music.

And it was like, for the first time in my life, I just.

I could not get enough.

I was looking at all this with fresh eyes and, like, honestly, like someone looking at food who has been just starving for so long.

And I purposed in that moment, I'm like, okay, this is it.

I am just seeking truth from here on out, no matter what the consequences are.

I need to make sure nothing ever comes between me and Jesus ever again.

And looking back in my life, for most of my life, I had been so prideful about having the right answer about, oh, I know Jesus.

They don't know Jesus.

I'm on the right track.

They aren't.

I had never even considered until that moment that my marriage could end.

I had so looked down on anyone who had gotten divorced.

Now, joke's on me at that point, because even though I didn't get divorced in that moment, a couple years later, I ended up getting divorced, which is unrelated.

That's another story for another time.

But I so had the sense of pride.

Very much like Simon the Pharisee in this story, where he's like, I am.

I'm great.

I know what I'm doing.

This woman.

This woman is a dirty, dirty sinner.

And I had so shared that mindset until I was the one weeping at Jesus feet, until I was the one having to confront how wretched I was, how my mistakes had hurt not just myself, but people that I loved.

And for the first time, I was really being smacked in the face with what grace actually means.

For the first time in my life, I actually understood what my need for grace.

Now, the crazy thing, and another parallel with my story and this story that we're reading in Luke 7, I was already wretched before that moment.

I was wretched before the first time I took a second look at a man that I was not in a relationship with.

I just didn't have a reference point for how wretched I was until I understood in my bones how badly I had messed up.

And I feel like that's.

That's something that's prevalent today in the Church.

There tends to be an attitude of, well, we have the right answer.

At least we're not like them.

At least we have truth on our side.

At least we can rest knowing that our eternal salvation is secure.

And friends, that is a dangerous place to be.

That's the place that I was in.

And only when something happened, only when I was humbled by the depths of my own sin and wretchedness and the destruction that I had caused, only then was I able to see, oh, oh, I have not been good, so to speak.

Like, I have not been good to go.

I have not been all set with my salvation, with my character, with any of it at all, ever.

But like this story says, you know, a certain.

Let's read it again.

A certain money lender had two debtors.

One owed 500 denarii and the other 50.

When they could not pay, he canceled the debt of both.

Whether your sin registers to you or whether it doesn't, whether something has happened in your life that has just brought you shame and guilt and really allowed you to experience the weight of your sin, or whether you were raised in the church and are like, yeah, you know, we all sin.

We all fall short of the glory of God.

But I'm saved by grace through faith.

It really, truly does not matter what your biggest sin is.

The point is that there is a debt there, there is sin there, we have missed the mark, and any sin at all separates us from the love of God.

And I can absolutely, honestly tell you that I appreciate my faith, I appreciate Jesus sacrifice.

I have such a better reference point for what grace actually means and what I have been saved from.

So much more now that I have had this experience in my life of being completely wrecked by my sin.

And I honestly am grateful that that happened.

And I, as much as I wish I could change the pain that I caused, but as far as the destruction to my own life and the wreckage of my own emotions that happened, I would not change a single thing, because I would not trade the weight that salvation carries now in my heart and in my mind.

I would not trade that for anything.

And I feel like having such a weighty debt canceled for myself allows me to have so much more compassion for those around me who are mired in sin.

Even those who don't claim the name of Jesus.

And honestly, especially those who don't yet know Jesus or claim him.

Now, there's a note that I wrote down in my notes.

I'm honestly not sure if this was something that my pastor had said or if this was my own note that I had made.

But when you compare your sin to others, we look like we don't need much grace.

But when we compare our sin to Jesus, it's clear how much grace we need.

So what I want to challenge you with today is praying for clarity about your own sin, your own status as a sinner.

Is there any way where you might be relating more to Simon the Pharisee in this story than the woman broken at the feet of Jesus?

It really.

It takes nothing away from us to talk about our mistakes and to admit our mistakes.

You know, I have people in my life who are like, why would you tell anyone that story?

That's something that you need to keep hidden.

That doesn't.

Like you were put in a position where you were preyed upon.

I even had a conversation with the guy's wife years later, which is.

Is a whole crazy story how that ended up happening.

But I had a conversation with the guys, knew he ended up getting engaged and married like, six months after he and I had had whatever that Was.

But she and I ended up having a conversation a couple years later where she was like, no, he preyed on you.

He fully preyed on you.

This was not your fault.

A guy who was much older than you, plied you with alcohol and took advantage of you, like, this was not your fault.

And personally, while I can recognize that what happened should never have happened and that there were forces at play that were not exactly fair to me, I also fully was aware of the situation that I was putting myself into, and I knew what was going to happen, and I was okay with it.

So I. I have people in my life who get actually frustrated with me when I talk about this story because they feel like it doesn't paint the whole picture.

But honestly, I feel like this story is a gift that I can use to just share the beauty of Christ's forgiveness and grace and love, especially with those who may be desensitized to things of scripture, of grace, of forgiveness, of salvation, because they've been basically inoculated with it their entire lives, which very much was the case with me.

I'm so incredibly grateful that I had the upbringing that I did.

But the effect for me was desensitizing me to Scripture, desensitizing me to faith, desensitizing me to the grace and love of God more than it was showing me the grace and love of God.

What really showed me the grace and love of God was screwing up so badly that I basically wrecked my entire life.

And so if my story can serve as any sort of example or illustration to someone else to really break through the walls that we've built up, we've.

I. I think desensitized really is the best word when we grow up knowing scripture and knowing how salvation works.

But it's lost its punch.

It's lost how deep and wide and wonderful and wild the love of God is.

I think there's a whole generation who know so much about scripture and know so much about Jesus, but do not know Jesus.

So if my story can do even a tiny, tiny part, if I can have even the tiniest part in breaking through some of those walls, it is so incredibly well worth it to me.

You know, this.

This journey that I've been on has been really difficult.

Just to kind of give a little preview if you don't know my story.

I did end up getting divorced a couple years later.

We had just had our first child, and when our son was four months old, I got served divorce papers.

And I went on to go through a very brutal divorce, multiple legal Battles not just related to the divorce.

And it was a time that, honestly, I almost did not survive, but because I had been so incredibly broken and so incredibly desperate for Jesus, how hard I clung to him after that was what allowed me to survive that period.

So I can very honestly say if I had not had the absolute crumbling because of my own decisions of my life that forced me into the arms of Jesus, I. I would not have survived when my entire life imploded just a couple years later.

I'm now remarried to a wonderful man of God who went through his own somewhat similar situation.

And how God has shown up for us, how he brought us together is a beautiful story.

We now have this beautiful blended family.

Things have not been easy at all, but we have this beautiful foundation that gives us just this heart for.

For people who don't know Jesus, whether that's because they've never been introduced to him or whether that's because they've been desensitized to him and have honestly been kind of tricked into thinking they know him when they don't.

We just have this heart for those around us who are also struggling and just mired in their own sin and who haven't gotten to know the grace and love and abundance of God quite yet.

So I would love to hear your own stories.

If you are open to sharing, you can email me rachelachelgrit.com I'm also open to questions, you know, if you have questions about my story or about faith or whatever the case may be.

I am a completely open book.

You know, I. I spent so much of my life crafting a version of the truth that was just close enough to the truth that I could get away with what I wanted to get away with.

I now have this just intense hunger and thirst for truth.

And as a result of that, I like there are truly very few questions that are off limits.

But I am happy to share as much of my story as you would like to hear.

So email me rachelachelgrit.com please make sure that you subscribe to this podcast on whatever platform you're listening on.

And if you would take a moment and give me five stars as a review, that would mean so incredibly much and also help me to reach other people who need to hear the truth of Jesus and who need encouragement, whether they have never been introduced or whether they have been desensitized to Jesus through whatever circumstances they've gone through in their life.

You know, religious trauma is a very real thing and we as Christians need to realize that we cause a lot of damage.

And we push a lot of people away from Jesus through our actions, through acting like Simon the Pharisee, through honestly being Simon the Pharisee, who we're so convinced that we're safe in our little ivory tower of salvation, that we're not like those sinners down there.

We are so much better than they are.

How could Jesus even deign to look at them when we don't realize we are more wretched than they are?

And so whatever your situation is, whether you've been hurt by the church, whether you've been hurt by people who claimed the name of Jesus, whether you've never encountered Jesus and are curious about him, whatever the case may be, you are welcome here.

And this is a place where you are safe, where you can get your questions answered.

And I'm really glad you're here.

So, okay, I'm wrapping this up.

Please make sure you subscribe to the podcast, give me five stars so I can reach more people, and I will talk to you in the next one.

Bye.