Secrets, Guilt, Hope

Guest post Kelly Heuer

Buried deep within my heart there is a Pit. It is black and deep. Actually, it feels bottomless. The Pit is so filthy, so crammed full of nastiness, that the areas surrounding it are tainted, too. It’s a scary place that pulls me back to its brink time and again. In the back of my mind is the urge to jump, like looking down from a great height. “Go on, just jump. You know you want to,” it whispers at me from its depth.

The Pit is filled with secrets. But not your run-of-the-mill secrets—we’re talking about the kind that if anybody knew the truth, they’d all abandon me. That’s what The Pit tells me, anyway. Nobody could possibly love me—I can’t love me—if the secrets are released.

And guilt! The Pit is full of guilt. Guilt and doubt. Everything from the most terrible thing I’ve done, to things that just didn’t go according to plan. The doubt in the Pit is a bog. It pulls me down, tries to drown me. My feet won’t move forward, my mouth can’t release a scream. Guilt feeds on my fear.

I hear a voice roar in disgust, “I know your folly! Your guilt is not hidden from me!” and, “Would I not have discovered it, since I know the secrets of your heart?” My shame deepens. The Pit promises destruction if it is purged of its favorite weapons, my secrets, my guilt. So I hang onto them in desperation.

Yet a whisper floats through the cacophony of despair. “My love will follow you all the days of your life.” There is only one who knows the Pit. One who came in after me and pulled me out. He promised me that I am loved. There are no secrets and guilt; He already knows them all. The Pit can threaten and make me tremble, but its promises are empty.

Friend, what are you desperately trying to hide from Him?

Kelly Heuer resides in Idaho and asserts that she is foremost a wife to her best friend and hero. Five children (plus a few extras) call her Mami, and she considers being a wife and mother to be her most important job and ministry. She is her church’s Music/AV Coordinator and serves as a song leader among other roles as needed. A missionary kid, Kelly lived in the Dominican Republic for 14 years learning to read and translate legal documents in both Spanish and English. She says one of the most important revelations of her time there was learning the value of writing in alleviating the pain of both internal and external struggles. She says while others might describe her as a survivor, she calls herself a fighter, a thriver, a winner. Kelly’s heart is to help women worldwide to go beyond survival and be freed to never again fear enslavement.

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