Free from the past
Wow – what an incredibly tough topic.
But the thing that stands out to me is, this horrible experience is something that happened to you. It’s not who you are.
I can’t even begin to imagine where a victim of rape would begin to separate her identity from what happened. What an unfair burden for her to bear – she now has to take responsibility for herself by forgiving and moving on. She’s bearing the weight of what someone else did, and it’s not likely that she will ever get an apology.
It’s easy to see what will set Cindy free – it’s an extreme example – but it’s no different from the emotional scars in my life. I can forever live as the victim of what that hurtful person in my life did, or I can stand up, forgive, and move on. I give up my right to stay hurt.
Forgiveness is a powerful thing. Neil says, “As a Christian, you are primarily the product of the work of Christ on the cross.” His act of forgiveness makes me a new person. And because of what He did, there’s nothing that’s happened to me that is too big for me to forgive.
Thank you Lord for forgiveness, thank you for forgiving me and for giving me the ability to forgive others that have hurt me.
ReplyDeleteI do not have a personal story as tragic as Cindy in today's devotional. I cannot even imagine what she went through.
What I do know from my personal pain filled experience that I went through at work was what Neil spoke of," that this happened to you, but it has not changed who you are, and it does not control you". Wow! that was a hard one to learn. It took two years of praying for those people that were hurting me to begin to free my soul of the pain of being wrongfully treated and accused. I was so sad and angry that I hated going to work, I could not understand why this was happening to me. God was so amazing as He lead me to trust Him every step of the way. I had been feeling dreadful for about a year when we had this survey at work that we had to take, it was a mental health survey , totally anonymous- blah blah blah, we want to make sure you are ok at work. So I took it and it came out telling me I should seek counseling because I was experiencing depression. God spoke to me through that survey and woke me up, basically I knew I was not what was happening to me, I was not going to let this job or any other job interfere with my happiness and effect my family life or forget how much God loves me. It was after I realized that I could not be changed by what was happening to me that the Lord began to use me and my circumstances to heal the situation, he even helped me to help other people through this trauma, He gave me strength I did not know I had.
"You can't fix the past, but you can be free from it."
ReplyDelete"Any number of traumatic, emotional events can clutter your soul with emotional baggage which seems to limit your maturity and block your freedom in Christ. You must renounce the experiences and lies that have controlled you and forgive those who have offended you."
God, I renounce the frustration that I have felt over the favorable treatment my youngest sister receives from my parents. I give to you my hurt and disgust over the emotionally immature actions of my parents. Help me to forgive and release the the emotional baggage, especially when I repeat the patterns of my parents in my own life. Set me free from the soul clutter I have carried piled up for way too long.