If you read my summary of Week 10 yesterday, then I’m sure you noticed I stopped at Day 3 in the week’s lessons. There was a reason for this… and not just because I had already written so much about Days 1-3!
It’s not that I possess a greedy spirit or have a need for more, but rather I struggle with allowing God to be enough in me, through me, around me, so that I might feel like I am enough for those around me as well. Rather than finding my satisfaction in the Lord, and who He made me to be, I battle feelings of not measuring up, or needing to do more!
Well, that battle smacked me right in the face again when I reached Day 4 of this week’s homework ~ “The Display of Satisfaction and Peace.” It is the lack of these two things that holds me captive, repeatedly…. even now. The entire first paragraph on page 230 was written just for me, I believe. Trauma {and drama} in my past has left me with scars. Those scars have left me with emptiness, with holes as Beth says. Those holes have left me with anger, hurt, bitterness, and a guard that I never let drop. It’s not the holes that keep me bound ~ it’s my unwillingness to re-open the wounds and give them to God!
I want the past to be the past. I want to tie it up with a bow, and pack it away as if it never was. But God…? He wants to unwrap it, to lovingly expose the wounds, and gently begin to heal them…
“Healing begins when we recognize how vulnerable those empty places make us, tally the cost of filing them with useless things, and seek wholeness in Christ alone.”
And even more still… He wants to display my hurts and HIS healing, for HIS glory!
And that’s when I will not only find true satisfaction in God, but I will become a display of that satisfaction and the peace that comes with it!
I hope you will forgive me, but I just needed to give that part of the lesson a bit more thought. My heart needed to hear it again… maybe yours did too?
The remainder of Day 4 focused on displaying the peace we find in obedience to God. Beth says that obedience will ultimately bring about joy and that there is no greater way to display God’s splendor than through our joy! She also summarizes both Isaiah 32:17 and John 15 by saying:
“Peace is the fruit of righteousness that, in essence, is obedience to God’s commands ~ the product of abiding in the vine.”
Day 5, Beth shares her final words of the study ~ her goals for each one who has gone through Breaking Free, and some final words of encouragement. There is no need for me to repeat all of her words, but I will say that I too pray this has given you a new lease on life. I pray that you have found freedom, and know how to keep it! If you {like me} are just beginning to realize where the true battle or bondage lies, I pray that you will continue to look up for the answers and that you will be willing to go through this study again and again until you are set free!!
Dear Lord,
I thank you for allowing me this chance to share your Words of hope and healing. I thank you for the holes you brought to light in my own heart and life. And I pray that each one of us might know the reality of being set free very soon!
Amen
**If you are new to this study and would like to know where/how to get the information referenced here, please visit LifeWay.com! Thank you, LifeWay for Women, for sponsoring this Bible Study!
God bless!
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I am living proof of how the Lord can take a broken life and turn it into something beautiful. Although I am still very far from perfection, I am still a work of His art. My heart's prayer is that "Brokenness into Beauty" will be a source of inspiration and encouragement to all! There is hope, and there is healing on the horizon.
