“You were an awful child,” I shrugged, caught off-guard and unable to respond kinder. It was the truth, though. She was the kind of kid you picture when someone mentions “the terrible twos,” but it started earlier and lasted years longer. She laughed. “Show me then. Show me pictures of how bad I was.” We dug out a scrapbook and pored over pictures, but only found evidence of a happy, dimple-cheeked child with fountain-top pigtails. She didn’t believe she’d ever been terrible. But she truly was. She was the kid you’d hear screaming in a restaurant as the waitress delivered steaming hot food, certain someone just dropped burning food on her. Except it was only a tantrum. She was the kid who’d throw herself on the floor of Target, drawing attention to the trauma in the tampon aisle, certain she’d been sorely mistreated. Except it was only a tantrum. The only documentation we owned lived in a thick scrapbook with a faint layer of dust across the top. The pages filled with pictures of a happy childhood left little to prove my statement of her dreadful misbehavior. It was as if the ugly moments I remembered never occurred.

We are all ugly

It led me to recall my own ugly moments. Moments I’m even ashamed to remember, much less record for anyone else to flip through as if on display. As if I would want to hold on to them and remember my own misbehavior, whether it was in my childhood or last week.

We don’t like to remember our own ugly actions or even thoughts. At least I don’t and neither do my kids. Maybe because it reveals a glimpse of our heart which the Bible refers to as “deceitful above all things and desperately wicked” (Jeremiah 17:9).

We all have an ugly heart problem.

But first –confess

1 John 1:9 says, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” This does not mean God will only forgive specifically confessed sins, but all of our sins! Romans 10:9 says if we confess with our mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. And its in this moment, our sins –past, present, and future–are forgiven. Wiped clean. Pardoned. Not held against us. Confessing our sins isn’t to let God know them. He’s omniscient. Rather, the purpose is for ourselves; it is part of the sanctification process. True confession is done with an attitude of humility. It’s acknowledging our sin and repenting of it. Unconfessed sin makes us miserable as evidenced by David when we read Psalm 32. The transformation in David’s body is astonishing from when he doesn’t confess his sin to his total repentance. Our bodies have a physical reaction to hiding our sin as does confessing it. Incredible. Remorse over our sin and a continual attitude of repentance are marks of a healthy Christian life.

Transforming from ugly to beautiful

The wonderful result of confession is the transformation of our hearts and lives. 2 Corinthians 5:17 says, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come. The old has gone, the new is here!” I can scarcely wrap my head around the undeserved grace and mercy the Lord gives us. He gives us a new heart and replaces our self-centeredness with His love. His promise is true –“I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone” (Ezekiel 36:26). Psalm 86:11 states, “Teach my your way, Lord, that I may rely on your faithfulness; give me an undivided heart, that I may fear your name.” With a new heart and a new attitude, the Lord transforms us from the old ugliness into a beautiful new creation.

What about you?

Do you have unconfessed sin in your life? Maybe you too are ashamed of your behavior? Maybe you’ve felt like David –miserable–unwilling to ask the Lord for forgiveness. No sin is too great for the Lord to forgive and when we ask it, he forgives our sin as far as the east is from the west. He doesn’t record our wrongs in a scrapbook such as my daughter had, but casts them away and pardons our sin. It’s gone forever and what’s left is you, a beautiful transformation.