How Can It Be?

Y'all...the fall has always been a favorite season of mine.  Something about the changing of the seasons just makes all things, feel new.

October marks a year since I've broken free from depression, oppression, and from the pits of hell as I like to call it.

Honestly, it feels like yesterday I broke those chains.

Yesterday, while on the phone with my sister we were discussing my mom and how we each have a journey in this.  How each of our journeys will look different and how God will reveal himself to each of us differently - yet collectively the same.

While we want to carry mom through this journey and make it easier, take away the hurts, take away the side-effects - that is simply not our job.  God never intended us to carry our burdens, much less someone elses.

He intended us take up and carry His cross.

Last fall the fight was hard, but it only prepared for what was ahead.

It also allowed me to see myself and God in fresh, new way.  A way I may have never been able to see Him, had I not been held captive.

And I couldn't be more thankful that He allowed me to walk that journey.

That I would have to die to this world, to the world I once knew so He could make me new.

I wrote in my Breaking Free book, "He allows us to grow through hard things, holding us captive so redemption/freedom is that much sweeter.  So we are so desperate for Him we are willing to do whatever it takes to gain freedom."

There is SO much sweetness in redemption.  Wish I could bottle it up and hand out it to the people I see hurting!!

There is SO much sweetness in freedom.  When I look back over the years and how broken I was, while I hope to never go back to that - I also never want to forget where I did come from.  Redemption has never been so sweet!  I hope I never forget what it felt like to shake those chains and finally stand on solid ground, where He sees me as he intended - beautiful, bestowed with a crown of righteousness, His beloved.

When He turns our ashes into beauty, there isn't a more beautiful sight.

So dear friend, whatever you are walking through this day or this season in life - know He came to set you free.  He came to give you new life.  He never intended us to be prisoners of our own despair.  Don't walk it alone, reach out to someone.  But also reach out to the one who came to set you free, heal you, and rescue you - our loving Father.

You gave your life to give me mine...

You say that I am free...how can it be?