Assets and Liabilities

(This is a super long post, but bear with me to the end- it's worth it!! :)

For the first couple of years of my college career, I was an economics/accounting major. That just seemed like the smart thing to do. I wanted a steady, well-paying career that I could count on and grow in. There was only one thing wrong with this: I HATED EVERY SINGLE ASPECT OF ACCOUNTING. There was literally nothing about it that interested me, excited me or gave me any sense of fulfillment. I continued with my classes because I simply hated to admit that I had made the wrong decision when choosing this major. Who wants to admit a failure, right?

(After several classes in the economics/accounting field, I finally broke down and decided I didn't care if I was poor and living with my parents until I died.. I was DONE with accounting. Although this has nothing to do with the "beef" of this post, I went on to change my major to communications and LOVED every single class I ever took in the field.)

One thing I did learn in one of my finance/accounting classes was about assets and liabilites. This is kind of like Finance 101... the basics. Yes, the concepts that I learned in these classes certainly made me more well rounded and taught me to make more financially sound decisions. However, this post is not about assets in the form of real estate and stocks. It's not about liabilities in the form or debts or loans. It is about a different kind of assets and a different kind of liabilites.

First and foremost, I have to admit that I am a thief and that I got this idea from a post that I saw on the (in)courage blog. I'll be honest.. I get this email blast every day and 99.9999% of the time I delete it. I get 88 gazillion emails every day, so unfortunately, sometimes some really good emails blasts get deleted without me ever taking the time to read over them. For some strange reason, today was different. I had a little bit of extra time to kill this morning, so I opened the email and read over the posts. They were so powerful and true, the thief in me had to steal the idea to share with my own readers.

Why are mistakes so easy to make? From tiny mistakes to life-shattering mistakes... they are just so darn easy to make. I would love to say that I am referring to tiny mistakes like eating too much sugar and getting extra large love handles before a trip to the beach. Or staying up too late, missing your alarm and being late for work the next day. Unfortunately, these are mere blips on the radar of life compared to the predicaments we get ourselves into.

It is so easy to see our mistakes and failures in life as liabilites- things that hold or even drag us down. We see them as things in the past that capture our future and hold it hostage so that we can never be fully "healed" or "recovered" from such wrongdoing. We think that these situations, mistakes or liabilities leave us with an ugly scar on our faces that will never be hidden. We will always see them... always know they happened and never be able to overcome it.

The truth is... our failures don't have to be liabilities. In fact, we can see our failures as ASSETS! No one leaves this world without making mistakes. Some bigger than others, but I can guarantee that even the most "wholesome" person you know has made some major "no- no's" in their lifetime. By taking these mistakes, forgiving ourselves for these mistakes and seeing them as lessons learned, we can turn those liabilities into assets and grow from them.

We often think that getting forgiveness from others is the hardest part, but the truth is... it's even harder to get forgiveness from ourselves. Forgive yourself. Return to grace. Turn your liabilities into beautiful assets, beautiful scars that serve as a reminder of your strength and how far you have come...what you have overcome to get to where you are today.

Read over the (in)courage post that I stole from their blog:

Liabilities and Assets
  Jul 11, 2012 01:20 am | Sarah Markley

So often we see our failings as liabilities. Or others failings as liabilities.
There’s the girl who had an abortion. There’s the girl who committed adultery. There’s the girl who walked away from her husband. There’s the girl who got so drunk on her own power and influence that she forgot who she was.
I think, however, if you ask any girl who has failed {and failed big} and has allowed God to return her to grace, you’ll find that those failings are not liabilities but they are assets.
Maybe you are one of these girls.
Several years ago when I created some terrible situations in my own marriage, I came out the other end of it a changed person and we came out a changed couple. In the months that followed I wrestled with a lot of things, but the one piece that is, even now, hard to work through is
If I could change it and go back, would I?
Yes. And no.
My life was so different after, and my new life was so distinct in the aftermath of it all that I don’t know what my life would have been had we not experienced those hard days. Would I trade this newness for life without it?
Yes. What I did was wrong.
So. very. wrong.
My addictions were horrible and my heart was a mess and I know God can do big things without our sinning to add to the mix. So yes, if I could go change it all, I would. I wouldn’t have been the betrayer, the hurter, the wounder. I wouldn’t have chosen the path of destroying. I would take every minute of it back.

But No. Without the wound, our relationship would never have experienced the kind of renewal that it did. I would not have fallen in love with Jesus in the way that I did when I became the rescued. And without my experiences I would never have the authority to speak to others in the midst of the same pain. Without what I’ve walked through I could never give counsel to a woman over a cup of coffee on a Thursday morning.
It’s an upside down idea. And one that is eternally hard to swallow: that God uses the deep dark to create the very, very good.
“In my deepest wound I saw your glory and it dazzled me, ” St. Augustine said.
 Because Your strength is made perfect in my weakness.
Your glory is made beautiful in my wound.
Your beauty is made evident in all of my failings.
My liabilities are made assets because of Your love.
Who better to counsel a woman through depression than one who has lived through the dark night of her own soul? Who better to help someone walking through marriage recovery than a person who has seen her own returned to health?
In this upside-down Kingdom, our liabilities are made into assets for Him. Our sins are turned into glories for Him. He redeems what has been lost and takes back what has been stolen.
He does this kind of crazy stuff every day.
So we must remember that there’s not a one of us who is any bigger liability than any other of us. My betrayals can be used (have been used) for helping couples knit themselves back to one another. And all of our failings can be turned into things that He can reach in and use us for what is good and true and perfect.
Has God used your weaknesses and wounds for His glory? How has He redeemed your own failings?