There is a specific kind of exhaustion that comes from carrying a past you’ve already outlived. Lately, I’ve been wrestling with the ghosts of my own choices, feeling the weight of things I thought were buried. This post is my exhaling. It is a declaration of where I’ve been, what I’ve done, and the mercy I am finally choosing to accept.”
If you are carrying a weight that was never meant for your shoulders, I invite you to leave a piece of it here. What is one thing you are ready to forgive yourself for today? Let’s walk toward the light together.
For days, my mind has been a battlefield where peace went to die. I have been breathing the stale air of a “past long gone,” dragging old ghosts into the present until my soul became heavy with the haunting. I felt it in my marrow and in the “second brain” of my stomach—a rising acid of remorse, a conflict of the ego that no medicine could soothe.
I realized that to swallow this bitterness any longer would be to drown.
Today, I choose the only way out: The way of the Alchemist. I am turning my culpability into a present accountability. I am not merely apologizing for my struggle; I am honoring it by allowing it to become a testimony.
The Confession
I walked a path of shadows and ill repute,
Weaving webs of manipulation for a life of gilded ease.
I cost men their kingdoms to furnish my own,
Trading integrity for a view few ever see.
I asked for love, and when the Great Provider gave a seed,
I let fear bloom where a child should have grown.
I cast away the miracle to keep the ghost of my freedom,
Choosing the cold silence of “no” over the warmth of “yes.”
I have been the architect of my own envy,
Comparing my reflection to a world of curated lies.
I have been lazy in my promises and a shortcut-taker in my craft,
Slandering the innocent and dismissing the weary with a judge’s gavel.
I have lacked the very character I claimed to possess,
Wounding the seen and the unseen with the sharp edge of my ego.
The Surrender
But the acid has reached the brim, and I am finished with the burning.
Heavenly Father, I stand before You stripped of my pretenses.
I confess the stains, the shortcuts, and the intentional hurts.
I ask for the blood of Jesus to act as a holy solvent—
To wash the “ill repute” until only the “reputation of Grace” remains.
Forgive me for the pain I caused that I cannot see.
Forgive me for the years I spent coveting what was never mine.
Take the lordship of every broken room in my heart.
The New Spirit
I exchange my “second ego” for Your first-rate Peace.
I thank You for the courage to look at my reflection without flinching,
And for the mercy that refuses to run dry, even when I am parched.
Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.
The struggle is honored. The sin is covered. The testimony begins.
I’ve learned that my body was never meant to be a warehouse for my regrets. It was meant to be a temple for my peace. How are you tending to your temple today?
Reba Nietert 