Pruning

The ways of God are beyond all understanding. Who can fathom them? He has come to restore us and to set those who are captive free. Why does freedom have to hurt so much sometimes? Don't you wish that sometimes you didn't have to feel
the pruning shears cutting away the dead branches?

This week something came to the light. I saw a place of wounding that still held me captive. For two days I sat numb, somewhat afraid to open the door to see what was behind it. It wasn't that I was afraid of what I would see, but more that I was afraid of what I might not see. You see, I knew this was a huge place that was woven into so many places of my life. What if I didn't see it all? Like a patient with cancer, under the knife of a surgeon hoping that they will find it all, I wondered. Would we find it all? Would I be one of those patients that would be opened to find the cancer so spread throughout my body that all that could be done was to close me back up and send me off to live as much life as possible? Would it be woven so deeply that I could not see to replace the old with the new...the truth? God did come to set captives free, right? Can He free me from this wound? After all I know it is woven deeply into so many areas, like the roots of violets in a garden. They entertwine and spread throughout the flowerbed. Would this wound be like that? How could I possibly see all the areas of my life that had been affected by this?

As I sat with God and started to "feel" I found myself not even knowing where to begin. So I started at the beginning. I invited Him to come into this wounded place and reveal what was hidden underneath. I thought of the verse in Hebrews 4: where it speaks of the Word of God being sharper than a double-edged sword, cutting through bones and marrow, dividing the soul and the spirit. I began to ask God to take His scalpel and cut down deep, dividing the flesh from the Spirit, opening my eyes to see what was the lie embedded in.

The road to freedom involves seeing the lies that have taken root in our hearts and pulling them up, and planting truth in their place, the truth of God. That is where God took me today. He took me to those wounded places and the little girl that was hiding inside. He called out my name and told me of the things that were true, those things that the little girl didn't see, couldn't see or process due to having the mind of a child.

It is for freedom that He came. He came for my freedom today. The old is gone, the new has come.

Jewelz

©copyrighted 2007 by Julie L. Todd