Tuesday, May 21, 2013

No more Shackles

Isaiah 9: 4 " For you will break the yoke of their slavery and lift the heavy burden from their shoulders."

Whether we want to admit it or not, we have all been bound to some type of slavery in our lives. Some things we were forced into, some we walked into oblivious to the shackles we were strapping on, and some of us took on our shackles of slavery as if they were precious metal. 

Some of us are bound by addiction, some by emotions, some by other people.

I was bound by a desire to be loved, I looked to have it filled in the arms of any man that would have me.  There were times that I believed I found it, and there were times were I knew I was being used, but I didn't care. I would hope that if I just kept letting them use me, they would eventually love me. What I didn't realize is that a master of a slave cannot love them, they do not look at them as having any value and they never will, because if they did, they would free them from their bondage.

I ended up binding myself not only to several men, but also to cigarettes, drugs and alcohol. These were physical bondages that could have done great harm to my body.

The shackles of men I put on also could have done physical damage to me, but the men did the most damage to my heart, my soul, my spirit. The more the men used me, the more my heart yearned for a deep meaningfull love, yet I kept turning to more men who only bound more shackles on me. My soul cried for humanity to be loving, yet I kept finding bondage and oppression. These things continued to stifle the tiny flame of my spirit that was left. I felt Hopeless and unlovable. I cried many times for love, or for the lost opportunity of love. The hole just kept getting deeper. Then I met a man I spent every waking hour with, I even told him at the beginning of our relationship that if all he wanted from me was physical, to tell me up front, I was okay with that. How sad that I was okay with being used, I had resigned myself to that being my life. But he wanted me to be his. I was his girlfriend, He said he loved me. Then  a month into our relationship I learned that his love came with conditions. I was pregnant... If I wanted to stay with him, I would have to have an abortion, I would have to kill the little being that had come out of our "love". I couldn't do it. We broke up, he threatened my life, told me he wished I would die, and I was ruining both of our lives. Nine months later the most pure love I had known up to that point came into my life. An amazing little boy, I named him Donte (lasting) Imani (Hope), I still had hope, but I knew in my heart things would have to change.

I began to seek God, I moved to Iowa, I began to find God :) He started speaking to me and showing himself to me. I fell in love with God. He removed my shackles and set me free to be the woman he created me to be, not the woman that I had allowed others to define me as.
But I still yearned to have a man to love me and my son. I still looked in the wrong places, because I didn't keep my focus completely on God I allowed my heart to become somewhat bound to a couple more men. Then it hit me, If I didn't love God completely he wouldn't allow another man in my life to take attention away from him. I needed to give my complete devotion to God.

Two weeks later I met a man who did not want me bound in shackles, but wanted me bound by love to him. He didn't expect things of me, in order to love me, he just loved me. We married a year later and over the next three years God brought two more men into my life out of a pure love, my sons Amon and Judah.  God had given me the pure uninhibited love of four men.

I realized soon after though that my heart,soul and spirit, though they were free in Christ still remained bound slightly within myself. I realized that I loved God, but that I was trying to be his "slave" and earn his love just as I had with men, I didn't feel worthy of the GIFT of his love, I thought I had to pay for it.  I'm still working on this. I'm still working through some of the emotions that came with this too. But my spirit... It is now a huge flame that continues to grow by the grace of God!

Don't allow any shackles to bind into a life that was not meant for you, God has freedom and the keys to loose you into His destiny for your life, but He can't remove the shackles if you don't let him. Allow Christ to free you from what binds you in this life!

1 comment:

  1. Thank-you for being candid! For we truly overcome by the blood of the lamb and the word of our testimony! I hope many read it and are set free! I am on my own journey to complete freedom!

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