Here’s a testimony we found on the internet.. Be inspired by God’s Love for You 🙂
In the Bible, the lepers are the people that nobody will touch. They are regarded as “freaks” and untouchable. I am a leper. I’m a freak.
See when I was 12, I started cutting myself. And at first, it was just a ploy to get attention. But as I got older and life got harder in high school, as it does, it just became more of an addiction that sought to take over my life and destroy my very soul. In high school, I was a loner. I didn’t have friends. I was this goth chik with the dog chain necklace and the spikes. The black makeup, the dark clothes, the black hair. I had everything. So people avoided me because that’s what I wanted them to do. But the reason I did that was because I was ashamed of who I was.
I struggled with drug addiction, alcoholism and a lesbian lifestyle. I have been molested by people I thought I could trust. People who have hurt me very deeply. And I hated myself. I hated them. And so I got into the occult and my life was consumed by darkness and hatred.
The older I got, the worse my cutting got. At its worst, I would have 50 fresh cuts on each arm. I have “help” carved into my bicep. And I can remember waking up in the middle of the night with the sheets stuck to my fresh wounds; the blood ingrained into them. The sheets had become part of my flesh. And when I would roll over in the middle of the night, the sheets would rip off the scabs and open up these fresh wounds; and it wasn’t uncommon for it to happen 2-3 times a night. I remember having to sit there and bleach my sheets repeatedly to try to get the blood stains out of them. I was in a Christian college. So to have my roommates come in and see blood all over my sheets didn’t fare well in the Christian college, as you can imagine. But I still have scars from that that show today. And when people see my scars, they are physically shocked. They wonder why someone would do that to themselves… HOW someone could do that to themselves. They get scared. They don’t know what to expect.
Throughout the years, I’ve discovered that people think that if they came near me or talked to me about them, or touched them, they would get this contagious disease of suicidal thoughts and tendencies… and they were just afraid of me. Of course, it wasn’t for the reasons *I* wanted. But it scared people, and that caused me to lead a life of secrecy about it. I’ve lost jobs, I’ve lost positions in jobs because of my scars. It’s a tough reality to face: that people cut themselves. But there’s a story in the bible about a man who wasn’t afraid.
His name is Jesus. And in Matthew 8:2-3, it says “And behold, a leper came to him and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, if you will, You can touch me and you can make me clean.” And Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, saying, “I will; be clean.” And back in biblical times, if you touched someone who had a skin disease, like leprosy, you were made to be a leper. See, the lepers lived outside the city gates. They were ceremonially unclean, and if you came in contact with them, then YOU were made ceremonially unclean, and YOU were cast outside the city gates for a purification process of 7 days or more until you could complete the purification process and be made clean again. So when Jesus touched this man, he MADE himself ceremonially unclean to where HE couldn’t go inside the temple and worship. To where HE was cast outside the city gates.
And THAT is when I realized how much Jesus loves me.
Because when Jesus touched that man, and see, I don’t think Jesus just touched him like you touch someone when you’re sitting next to them. I think Jesus caressed the man: caressed his shoulder… caressed his face. That Jesus touched his spots that nobody else would even dream of touching. And I can identify with that because I think when Jesus touched me, I think he reached out his arm, and he looked at mine, and he saw my scars, and he caressed them. He ran his fingers over my bicep. He traced out where I carved “HELP”. And there wasn’t shock. There wasn’t shame. There was just love. That’s when I realized how much Jesus loved me. Because Jesus took my place outside the city gate. And he became a leper. He took MY SCARS. And he stood outside the city gate and he told me “Rachel, go. Be clean”. And that’s how much Jesus loves you too.
Now in 2 Corinthians 5:21, it describes this situation perfectly of what Jesus did for us. It says, “ For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we (you and me) might become the righteousness of God.”
Now it’s been 5 ½ years since I’ve cut myself. I know now, that I am loved. Nothing I can do can make Him love me less, and nothing I can do can make him love me more. He loves me just as I am – scars and all. And He loves you that way too. No matter what you’ve gone through. He loves you just as you are 🙂