December 22, 2025 Devo

I read one of the saddest blogs I’ve ever seen a while back. It was from a woman who was grieving over her relationship with her mother. She said that her mother never praised her, but only criticized her as she was growing up. Even now, as an adult, it’s continued. One of the particularly hurtful things her mother does is bring up stuff from the past. She reminds her daughter of the bad choices she made. She reminds her of failures she’s had. She reminds her of things that didn’t turn out the way that she’d planned or hoped. The criticism spread to include her husband, whom her mother calls “a loser.”
You can hear the deep heartache in each sentence in the blog. All she ever wanted to do was to please her mother. She wanted to make her proud. But her mother, probably out of her own pain, refused to affirm her. The attacks became so constant and ugly that the woman had to block her mother on social media and from texting her. From the one person in life that this young lady has most wanted love, she’s received only judgment and shame. Heartbreaking.
Aren’t you glad that God’s not that way? Can you imagine if He held every failure over our heads? He was there for every sin, every mistake, and every bad decision. Yet out of His Great Grace, He has decided to believe the BEST, not the WORST! When we confess our sins to God, He doesn’t just file them away. He crosses them off. He erases them. They are GONE. All that’s left are our successes, our acts of obedience, and our times of faithfulness. He’s a Father who ADORES His Children. He’s a Father who CELEBRATES His Children. He’s a Father who believes that we are worth investing in, sticking with, and dying for. THAT’S the kind of parent every child needs.
Have YOU been reminded of your faults and failures recently? Has someone thrown something up in your face from your past that you’ve tried to forget? Remember that when people do that, it’s not about you. It’s about them. Like the woman with the horrible mother, people in pain just like to see other people suffer, too. Maybe you need to be reminded today of how God sees you. He doesn’t remember that bad decision. He doesn’t remember that failure or that mistake or that sin. When you confessed those to Him, they were gone. God doesn’t see you as you were. He sees you as you are…wrapped in the beauty of His Grace. He’s a God who doesn’t just forgive. He forgets. That’s God’s Word for you today.