Lessons of a Bad Girl

The lives of biblical bad girls have always fascinated me, probably because I have trouble identifying with the good girls in Scripture. Ruth, Esther, and Mary were faithful, courageous, and innocent, while I am clearly none of the above. I stumble regularly in my walk with Christ, am not always brave, and am anything but innocent.

When I embraced the grace-filled life 25 years ago, I found out the church was full of women like me—hiding a shady past or a questionable present, longing to connect with other sisters who've been down the same road, and searching for answers about the depth of God's forgiveness. To help answer those questions, I've explored the stories of 24 infamous women, including Jezebel, Delilah, Bathsheba, Herodias, and other ancient sisters who took a walk on the wild side.

As Jesus said, "No one is good—except God alone" (Mark 10:18). God's divine goodness stands in sharp contrast to our badness, and that of these women. When we discover that God extended mercy to the woman caught in adultery, that he reached out to Rahab the harlot, that he delivered Mary Magdalene from her seven demons, we can begin to accept his unconditional love for us, flaws and all. "How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!" (1 John 3:1).

First, I discovered how very much we have in common. My own temptations and sinful inclinations became very apparent as I dug into their sordid stories. Some are cautionary tales with gruesome endings, such as Jezebel being shoved out the window and trampled by horses. Others give us hope, like the story of the unnamed prostitute who anointed Jesus' feet with her tears and dried them with her hair. The Lord's response—"Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven—for she loved much" (Luke 7:47)—offers a balm to us all. Whatever the outcome for each bad girl, I found a point of identification with her situation and with her sin, and so learned from her example.

In a nutshell, I threw away a decade of my life in pursuit of pleasure: sex, drugs, drinking, spending; the more risk involved, the better. It's a miracle I survived without getting arrested or contracting a disease. When I hit bottom, two dear souls—new to the faith and full of grace—gathered me in their arms and loved me back to life. They didn't say, "Believe in God;" not at first. They said, "God believes in you. God loves you, Liz. God has a plan for you." I was skeptical, but I was willing to listen. What I heard was the unwavering truth of God's grace: "God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8). Finally, I believed those words and realized I was loved and I was forgiven. His grace truly

amazing.

Perfectionism is a biggie. We feel a huge amount of pressure—much of it self-imposed—to excel in every arena of our lives: work, school, church, home. We extend no grace to ourselves, instead pushing, pushing, pushing, which not only wears us down but also negatively impacts those we love. No wonder we're all stressed up with nowhere to go!

Continued on page 2: Sarah and Rachel--bad girls at heart? »