Secret and Shameful Ways…

It was as if my heavenly Father commandeered the meeting – a tactical move to push the enemy back from trespassing on my freedom, from invading territory where he was not welcome.

As my husband and I prayed with our Pastor that day, a new question was posed – to enquire of the Lord if there was a particular verse or passage of Scripture that He wished for us to read together.

2 Corinthians, Chapter 4 immediately came to mind. The Pastor was familiar with the passage. It speaks of our treasure being held in jars of clay, and promises that, “We are hard-pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair…” (vs 8). He could see why the Lord would lead us to these verses.

Or so he thought.

The Power of Momentum…

I have to admit, I was a little discouraged.

The prompt for #livefreeThursday was “nothing holding me back” and I immediately felt a heaviness inside. A sense that I was somehow ‘less than’. That I didn’t measure up.

I felt a longing deep within for those words to be true of me, but I knew that this just wasn’t my reality.

There are, after all, things that I know still hold me back…

Safe in His Hands…

Feeling safe has been a lifelong struggle for me. My capacity for trust was stolen at the tender age of five, along with my innocence. My friend and I were left in the care of her two older brothers. Two little bundles of life, all pigtails and giggles, without a care in the world.

One afternoon forever changed all of that.

I was too ashamed to tell my parents what had happened. I was afraid of how my father would react. He was unpredictable at the best of times – prone to outbursts of anger. I was sure that he would never be able to love me again, if he discovered the truth.

So I carried dark and heavy secrets alone.