It's that weighty stone in your heart. You know it in your step, you sense it in your bones, and you feel it like open windows behind your eyes. Guilt is what drags us down, time, time and time again.

You feel as though at any moment you may burst. The thought of others finding out those ugly sins, those unholy crimes you have committed, will absolutely break you. You hide your scars, your faults and the deep dark behind your eyes.

Your mind is the most terrible place. It taunts you, telling you how ugly you are, reminding you of how unworthy you feel. The thoughts become darker still, slinking and descending deeper into your heart.

You paint your portrait by your faults. You define yourself by your wrongdoings, by the sin that tethers your heart to the past.

But that's just it. The devil uses our faults, our downfalls, to drag us deeper still. He whispers quietly, menacingly in our ear, in our rising and in our descending, reminding us of our failures. He captures the beauty of salvation, of freedom, and drapes and drowns it in the memory of these failures.

Unfortunately, I don't have all of the answers, and Jesus' grace is something I have yet to grasp in full. Guilt is something I struggle and fight against daily. Truly, my mind seems to be my worst enemy at times.

But what I do know is this-- "The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it." (John 1:5).

It shines. It does not simply flicker or fade with time. The light absolutely eradicates the darkness. It calls out to our faults, challenging them and their power. The darkness literally cannot grasp the power of this light, its' hold is lost. Just as darkness is the absence of light, so is evil the absence of good.

Our minds host a myriad of thoughts, as they ruminate and are choked by that surrounding darkness.

But power is found in truth. Truth is what sets us free, detangles these haunting thoughts and shines the brightest of lights on our minds' darkest corners.

Talk to someone. Speak with someone who knows your heart, and will care for it as if it were their own. There is so much power in speaking freedom over our fears. Once these guilty thoughts are brought to the light, brought out in the open, we realize our horrible demons were mere shadows, tricking us with terrible fiction.

And know, that man is not our God. If someone is dragging you down further into your guilt, drowning you in that salty sea, do not listen to them. A friend once wrote to me, "A liar has no power over you unless you let yourself be deceived."

I have found a lot of myself in the song, "I Have Made Mistakes" by The Oh Hellos. It reminds me that I am not alone, and that this feeling of guilt is not something uncommon to man. This song captures the heart of the guilty, and breathes hope into them once more. The words say, "And oh my heart, how can I face you now? When we both know how badly I have let you down and I am afraid of all that I've built fading away." But this hope comes in the chorus, "And the sun, it does not cause us to grow, it is the rain that will strengthen your soul, and it will make you whole."

The sun, this light, is what eradicates fear and brings hope. But the rain, the rain washes us clean again. It reminds us that we have yet to grow, and that our work here remains unfinished.

You are defined by God's grace alone. Read that again, again, and again. Your sins, your past mistakes, are terrible tools the devil uses against children of the Maker. Please, do not allow yourself to be deceived. Your beauty is found in the absolute blinding grace of the Father. He, and a whole host of heavenly beings, are cheering you on. You are free, because freedom is an open gift we are all called to receive.