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Picture yourself in a tiny prison cell with bare, cold, hard floors, with nothing on the walls.  Not a single light except a tiny window high up that sheds shadows into the prison that you can’t even see through.  Then you begin to feel the walls closing in around you, and you start feeling claustrophobic, as if the oxygen is being depleted minute by minute, until the only thing you can do to escape this miserable existence is curl up in a little ball and literally pass out.

 

Then you wake up a little later in such a state of panic, because all you have dreamt about are these forms coming to just suck all the life out of you. And the panic starts with your heart beating what feels like 200 beats a minute.  You feel dizzy and nauseous, your palms and feet are sweaty (which is actually welcome, because usually they are cold and numb).  You start hyperventilating because you don’t feel like you have enough oxygen.  Then you feel like your heart is being gripped in a vice, squeezing air out of your lungs, until you eventually pass out again.

 

I am aware that this is overwhelmingly graphic, but it is literally what I went through over a 2-year period, including being hospitalized on several occasions. Sometimes we need to be reminded of where we have come from, although I wouldn’t wish what I went through on anyone. I truly believe that we cannot fully appreciate that we have been translated from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of God’s Son Jesus, the Son of His love, who through the shedding of His blood, paid the cost for our redemption so that all claims against were cancelled, until we have something to contrast it against. Only then can we experience His life and light and love and peace and joy and righteousness that wipes our messy slate clean of all guilt, shame, condemnation, pain, suffering, broken-heartedness, deep depression, including the desire to take ones own life.

 

You see, when the Lord led me out of my prison and I realized that I had been set free, at first it wasn’t such a pleasant experience. Consider this for a moment: When there has been darkness for so long, your whole body feels sore and numb, and now all of a sudden your eyes are exposed to light, and the steps you take are slow, painful, very awkward, and you have to actually shield your eyes from the light until they become accustomed. And then you have to go lie down in green pastures, by a quiet river, and soak up the Son, so that you can thaw out, and get some Vitamin D (D for DADDY) again into your system again.

 

Then all of a sudden, you feel these arms of love wrapped around you, and for the first time you actually realize that you are truly FREE!

 

Forever

Released

Experiencing

Eternity in your heart

 

That is when you realize, that as bad as the darkness was, coming out into the light of your Father’s love, and your Big Brother Jesus’ care, is what they both intended for you all along.  The dam finally breaks and all the pain, heartache, brokenness, suffering, rejection, and everything that accompanies it, is replaced with LOVE!  PURE, UNADULTERATED, UNCONDITIONAL LOVE!

 

That wondrous Love will always provide your once-broken heart with an unstoppable sense of gratitude.  If you ever want to experience a life-giving high that need never end, then let Jesus set you free, and allow thanksgiving to become a way of life for you.There is always something to be grateful for. And that gratefulness always produces joy in you. That joy always produces strength. And when in your union with Father, Jesus and the Holy Spirit, you experience God’s strength, power, ability and grace in you, absolutely anything is possible.

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