Released from prison!

I was trying not to stay angry about the fact that I lost 90 minutes worth of typing, and then it struck me: the memoir itself was not what God wants me to write here tonight. I needed to read it to gain some perspective and hear what God's telling me. My memoir talked about upholding an image of perfection while burying everything else... "I stuck a smile on my face and held a laugh in my chest just in case I needed it to convince them. But underneath the veil of a perfect girl, I was falling apart. Behind all of the perfection cowered a scared five-year-old child, wishing she would just stop crying, or that someone would notice her tears. The veil became a hardened mask, layered and firm, from which cries could never be heard or seen."

I still relate to the person I was when I wrote those words 5 years ago, but she is NOT me anymore. Thanks be to God for setting the captives free - even from our own self-created prisons! I realized that God is still setting me free from things in my life, and has released me from the bondage of my former life. Is He doing that for you in your life right now?

What about binding up the brokenhearted and bringing good news to the afflicted? He did that in a huge way for me 2 weeks ago tonight, and I didn't even realize I was so brokenhearted! Today makes the 14th night I will be without medication I've been on for YEARS. God healed things in my mind and in my heart that I have struggled with for so long that I'd come to believe that I was just created to be that way. Is He doing that for you in your life right now?

5:1 Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. 5:2 Through him we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in our hope of sharing the glory of God. 5:3 More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 5:4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5:5 and hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit which has been given to us. 5:6 While we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. 5:7 Why, one will hardly die for a righteous man--though perhaps for a good man one will dare even to die. 5:8 But God shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us. 5:9 Since, therefore, we are now justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. 5:10 For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. 5:11 Not only so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received our reconciliation.

Romans 5:1-11 RSV

God did not create us for turmoil or bondage. He wants to give us His peace and wants us to be reconciled to Him - no masks. He wants to restore our faith and give us hope. Having "faith [in Him] makes all things possible - not easy."

Amen.