Imagine that someone has taken a lock and key and trapped you inside the worst version of yourself from the past. Close your eyes and consider what that looks like to you.
Is it from your sixth grade year when you had braces and greasy hair? Maybe it looks like the gangly, wiry kid that got teased in high school. Or the chubbier-cheeked kid who got picked last for basketball.
Maybe it's the person who made a giant mistake. A giant mistake that's turned into a giant secret. A giant secret that's turned into a giant burden.
Maybe it's the version who was left wounded or warped by people who didn't care anything about you.
Can you envision that your worst self is your puppeteer? Or...do you even have to imagine it?
Does who you were or what's been done to you manipulate the way you live today? If so, you aren't free.
Paul could have let the past control him. He had ventured out on a murdering spree, targeting anyone who followed Christ. God set him straight with a proverbial brick wall of literal blindness, and while Paul could have worshiped and believed quietly in the closet of his home, Paul commanded the attention of the masses. Paul wasn't fettered to shame--he turned his life around. And if God could forgive him, so could he forgive himself. If God could offer him grace, he wasn't too proud to accept it.
Mistakes don't have to be our dictators. Regret doesn't have to be our chains.
Despite a past that could have steered his course in a vastly different direction, Paul lived free. And the world was better for it.
Joseph could have let the past control him. He was beaten to a pulp by his jealous older brothers and left for dead. He lived a thick chunk of his young life behind bars for no reason at all. God freed him and raised him to the height of success, and when those thugs he had for siblings showed up in need, Joseph could have answered in spite and retaliation. But he didn't. Joseph wasn't restrained and embalmed in bitterness. He embraced his brothers, and he helped them live.
When you can cut the cord between the pain of past abuse and your at-present heart, the way you respond becomes entirely up to you--be it in wise separation or open-armed grace.
Despite a past that could have stonewalled his heart, Joseph lived free. And he was better for it.
I've seen great men and women of faith up close and personal choosing to defy their ugly pasts. Friends who have used bad decisions to reform their futures. A grandmother who gave a giant hand-slap to her abuse-riddled past with a commitment to being kind to the world around her. A friend who has sliced through the hurt of abandonment, choosing to live a life that doesn't dignify such disrespect with the bother of her time, energy, or wasted resentment.
People who live free. Who have shown me how to live free as well.
Who remind me that the past can be a mere chapter in a history book and doesn't have to be a daily entry in a present-day diary.
Who have shown me that the past can remain a handy how-to for distant hiccups and doesn't have to be the thermostat of the days to come.
May it be said of you that you controlled how the past assimilated into your life and not the other way around.
May it be said of you that you rose above, that you cut the cord, that you defied the odds.
May it be said of you that you lived free...and that the world was better for it.
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