Cleansing

"To forgive is to set a prisoner free,"

 Currently
    Reading: "Learning" by Karen Kingsbury

    Watching: Marley & Me

    Listening: "Not Guilty Anymore" Aaron Keyes

You are spotless
You are holy
You are faultless
You are whole
You are righteous
You are blameless
You are pardoned
You are mine

Okay, so you know that feeling you get after a really long day; the one that is an expression of tiredness, but full of accomplishment- a work well done? I have walking around with that feeling all week. That feeling of knowing I have survived; and I have, I have survived. I have survived all the physical pain I've been going through. I've survived all the changes at work. However, more importantly I survived the complete and total breakdown I had back in January, and am healing more and more everyday. Because I am a fighter, only by the grace of God's love and ever so perfect timing.Slowly but surely I feel like God has been fulfilling the verse in my life that says He makes the crooked places straight. 

I had planned to go through all the stuff I had shoved in the back of my closet when I first came home. I had been preparing myself for that moment all week,  because I knew it was going to cause a few shed tears. But before I could even get to that this weekend I knew I had a few errands and chores to get done. So I started on them as soon as I got home on Friday, and kept getting interrupted. No sooner did I get up to start and I happened to look down at my phone. It was the one person I had been avoiding since I left more than anyone, because I knew it hurt so badly. So I answered anyway. It was hard, it was awkward, it was uncomfortable. But it was necessary. At one point I just decided all the tiptoeing I was doing wasn't doing anyone any good; so I told the truth. I didn't leave offended, but offense had tried to find me when I left. And that was the hardest thing. I think the thing we forget as Christians is that forgiveness can communicate more than silence. Because when I ask forgiveness for offense, it allows someone else to truly know my heart and Jesus to shine in that place I had chosen not to name. The minute it came in to the light, I felt the love that person had for me come radiating through.

That conversation opened the door for a lot of healing. I spoke the truth out loud. I was hurt, I was offended, but I was trying to heal. And peace came in like a flood gate when I loved again, even in the midst of fighting temptation. I wrote to a lot of people and allowed them to hear my heart, and they received it broken and all.

John Bevere wrote a series called "The Bait of Satan". You know what the bait was? Offense. You know why we fall for it? Because we allow seeds to take root, because we aren't aware of our hearts.

If your reading this, join with me in tuning back in. In hearing that still voice calling to you, letting you know there are boxes in the way of your peace.

Love holds no record of wrongs...

"...and discover that the prisoner was you."  ~Lewis B. Smedes