Extract from: Prose from a Backslider’s Journal

How can I step into that light?

I have denied Him: not once, not twice,

but a thousand times.

I have felt the heat of the fire

and lied to the strangers around me,

cursing like Peter, “I do not know the Man.”

I cannot lift my chin; I cannot endure the weight of His grace.

Yet, He didn’t turn away.

He looked at me, not with anger, but with a pity that broke me.

In the center of my bitterness, while my grief was a fountain I couldn’t shut off,

I felt His hands. They weren’t pushing; they were wrapping around me.

His eyes locked with mine, steady and terrifyingly kind.

“I have taken it all,” He said.

“Your sins are gone, as far as the East is from the West.”

I tried to shrink back. I tried to pull the shadows over my head like a blanket.

The guilt is a chain I’ve worn so long it feels like skin.

I thought my lips were too stained to even breathe His name.

I was so sure the flame was out.

But His mercy was louder than my shame.

“Child,” He whispered, “I have loved you evermore.”

He told me that even when I wandered into the deep brush,

His blood covered every rising tide of my mistakes.

He is telling me to rise now.

He says the grave couldn’t hold Him, so why should this guilt hold me?

The promise was paid for,

a debt settled in a time I wasn’t even born.

Every denial, every curse, every stumble,

He bore the impact of them all.

Now, I reach out to throw off the night,

looking at His open arms,

daring to believe they are true.

There is no stain that He won’t wash-

I lift my head,

let the weeping cease,

and choose to receive this peace.

It is finished.

I am finally,

finally free.

© jjf’2026

I wrote this during a season where I felt my mistakes were louder than God’s voice. If you’re feeling like a ‘backslider’ today, I hope these words remind you that the way home is always open.

It doesn’t matter how far you feel you’ve drifted or how many “gods” have taken priority in your life lately; the door is still wide open for you to come home. Even when we are unfaithful, God remains a committed Father who refuses to give up on the covenant He made with you. He isn’t waiting for you to “fix yourself” before you return; He is waiting to do the fixing for you. As He promises in Hosea 14:4, “I will heal their backsliding, I will love them freely.” You don’t have to earn God’s affection or perform your way back into His good graces. His love is a gift, and His desire is simply to heal the heart that wandered away.

As I returned to sit at His feet, Psalm 107 became my constant prayer. Then I came across Psalm 103:12 – “As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.”

Thanks for reading.💖