Sometimes, emptying the pockets of my children's clothing can be an adventure. I've found rocks, pine straw, bottle caps, race cars, peanuts, lip gloss, secret notes and even one, very dehydrated lizard. All of these small treasures (even the lizard) remind me that my children are healthy and thriving, doing "kid stuff" like pros. If they are collecting moments of joy in their pockets, I have no complaint! I have to smile and think of our Heavenly Father and how He loves when we are healthy and thriving, being Christ-like in how we approach our "human stuff". The times when we put His word in our pockets and keep reaching our hands back in to feel and hold them, rubbing the most liberating ones between our fingers. I wish that those were the only things I had in my pockets, but just like my own children, I had accumulated a few items that I couldn't quite part with. And ever so gently, ever so mercifully, God asked me to take them out and let Him look at them.
I didn't want to. Those were my things, things that didn't touch the light of day, let alone the light of God.
You see, I had a pocket full of memories that I didn't dare take out. It was so much easier to just shove other things down in there until they were jammed in the bottom. Joys and blessings, nestled atop thorns and shards. The sharp objects seemed to always find their way to the top though,so that when I did reach down in there, I'd come back with an injury more often than I'd like to admit. I realized that although I have accepted Christ in my heart, although I know and believe there is only one, true God; I still held on to a belief that there were parts of me that God didn't want. So I kept those parts hidden and buried way down and not only did I accept the lie that Jesus couldn't or wouldn't want to heal them, I was foolish enough to believe that I could keep them. The Holy Spirit said, "Let me hear your story". God said, "Empty your pockets and lets take a look at these things. Together." Not now Father, they hurt too much. Please anything, but that. Don't make me go back, I will be okay, I promise. My story felt like home to me. My story would be like a literal hell to anyone else. "Good", He said. "What better place to start?"
I had a decision to make. Would I continue to hide these things and let them injure me? Would He really be there to look at these things with me? Why now? Would He still love me? Yes, I became one of little faith over these things and that is when I realized that I wouldn't dare question God if He asked me to do something good and help someone else. I remembered God's promises. I remembered the person of Jesus Christ and how he delivered a demon possessed Mary Magdalene who became one of His most faithful disciples. I remembered the bleeding woman. The woman at the well. For the first time, I believed that God's promises were meant for me and that if He was asking me to do this, He had a reason. After much prayer and deliberation, I finally saw that He wanted me to speak His truth into the dead bones cluttering the graveyard of my past. My Father wanted me to go back to each place with Him and examine it. So, I poured my story out and as I did I noticed each shard reflect the lies that were attached to them. I spoke His truth over each one as I felt my Savior come closer and closer, offering His strength to move from one to the next. I understood why we must confess our sins before God, because sometimes those sins don't originate as our own. Sometimes they are sins others committed against us that we ingest and shackle ourselves to when we believe the lies attached to them. They become ours when we nurture a spirit of ambivalence, hopelessness and fear. They bind us to them and restrain us from truly knowing Jesus Christ. True shackles clasped upon us that start to feel so comfortable that we forget they are there. Until... Until someone tries to embrace us and then the shackles dig in and rub us raw, reminding us of how they got there to begin with, reminding us of how we have been bled out of trust and worthiness a long time before. We push the tender gesture away with a look of longing, rub a balm of protection on the wound and keep enough distance that the wound can scab over. Again.
Jesus Christ came to set me free. Too many times I turned Him away when He tried to tell me, "I can heal that too...". Too many times I turned my face away in shame and re-adjusted the shackles. This time, I reluctantly met His gaze. Looking into the face of mercy I said, "I am ready."
All this time of simply nursing the symptoms of pain has come to pass. I went to the source of the pain, I went deep into the locking mechanism and with the strength of God and The Kingdom of Heaven upon me, I was freed. Jesus wasn't willing to watch me lead others to him while I remained comfortable in the hell of my own past and I had to expose every painful memory to His light. In Heaven's wake, in each of those memories, I took that little girl and loved her until she knew that Joy is the truth. Hope is the truth and that she can believe in the Mightiest Protector and Redeemer that man has ever known. I went to that young woman and showed her that even when she felt condemned to a life of brokenness, God was preparing her for a life of purpose. His purpose.
And now, I rebuke every lie the enemy has ever told me and when he comes again to try to reopen the wounds, they won't be there. Jesus washed them clean in His mercy. The lies will fall like arrows without a point, missing their intended target every single time. I finally know that I am living from a place of victory, not hoping for it. I will sing a song of victory in the thief's face, I will proclaim God's redemption with every breath. And when I run out of breath, I will rest in knowing that those around me have heard the same songs and truths and that a legacy of hope will be passed down from me, not a legacy of shame. I thought I had to go to the source of the pain to heal and what I overlooked is that I needed to go to the source of all creation to heal; My One True God. He was always bigger than all of it and never again will I approach Him with small faith in His works.
I admit this here and now, I knew that I had been delivered and had become a new creation in Christ, but because of my own inability to hope, I accepted this one, destructive thought; my insecurities were just a part of who I am and that I was destined to live with them forever. What kind of poppycock is that? Christ didn't hang on a cross in battered pieces and shreds so I could condemn myself to always feeling unworthy. He didn't want me to grab on to the end of his garments in hopes that He might not notice that I was hanging out trying to pick up the crumbs. Jesus Christ wants my heart, boldly. He wants me to know that He is the author of an ever challenging, ever elusive word for me. Hope. I guarded against it for far too long because of those lies I shackled myself to and when God met me at that last memory, I finally heard:
"For who is God, but the Lord? And who is a rock except our God? The God who equipped me with strength and made my way blameless, He made my feet like the feet of a deer and set me secure on the heights. He trains my hands for war, so that my arms can bend a bow of bronze. You have given me the shield of your salvation, and your right hand supported me, and your gentleness made me great. You gave me a wide place for my steps under me, and my feet did not slip. I pursued my enemies and overtook them, and did not turn back till they were consumed."Psalm 18:31-37.
God equipped me for hope from my first breath. Now, after my Savior has presented me blameless in front of my Father, my story will become a beacon and I am a vessel, willing to shine that light as far and as bright as HIS might. For the first time in my entire life, my pockets are empty of shame and my heart is full of hope. Father, I receive that these hind's feet are going high places. Thank you for it all.
Oh, those shackles? This morning, with his arm wrapped around me in love and support, my best friend, the one person on Earth who looked at those shards with me, knelt at the altar with me and I laid those busted shackles down. For good.
And God met me there.
"And we all with unveiled faces, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit"
2 Corinthians 3:10 (ESV)
"And we all with unveiled faces, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit"
2 Corinthians 3:10 (ESV)
