Prison of Me

As we continue through this time of isolation, I find myself remembering back to a time when I would hold myself in self-imposed isolation.  To be honest, I didn’t know how not to isolate. Keeping myself safely shut in from the world where I had experienced so much pain and rejection had become such a way of survival for me. Sure, I knew how to perform, and sometimes I could even fool myself to believing that I was able to hold my world safely intact, keeping my heart safe to live another day, while still holding others inside the exam room of my heart where, upon close inspection, I could always find a reason to prove to myself that my guests were unworthy for me to entrust my heart to.  Yet, there is something that happens when we continually live to safeguard our hearts.

We may keep pain out, but we also keep love out. 1 John 4:18 says, “There is no fear in love but perfect love casts out all fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.” I had no idea, until Christ showed up, that fear was actually my prison guard, and one whom I had been faithfully paying a high cost to keep a safe watch over my heart.  This is the very first area that Jesus came for when He came for me.  His Light burned through the darkens of my prison wall, revealing the truth about  me, that it was not a fortress of protection I had been building, it was a dark, dingy prison cell that I had been held hostage in.

Even so, I was terrified to leave, for I did not know how to trust, how to believe that love could set me free.

It’s terrifying to leave our self-imposed prisons, for many of us, they have been the only constant we have known.  And as the saying goes, better to cling to what we know, than trust the unknown.

But, Jesus was asking me to let Him become my new life,  my new Way, and I knew, by faith, I must obey and let Him lead me out.

Sometimes, stepping out onto the shakiest ground of a new start is the bravest thing we will ever do.

It becomes the hinge upon which a whole new life begins.

I know it was for me. I am certain that  I have already lived my bravest moments and that each moment I forge out in this journey with Jesus now only represent extensions of what first began the moment I took my first steps.

Oh, how I pray Jesus uses this time to set some of us free, and to allow others of us to deeply celebrate the freedom Christ has given us to leave our self-imposed prisons and truly love Him, and love one another.

Perhaps just as light is not fully understood without the backdrop of darkness, real love, the love of God is not fully understood without the backdrop of isolation.

I like to call it Self Sufficiency

But what it feels more like is a Prison inside of Me

“I can do it Myself, I will show you”

“I don’t need your help, I can tie my own shoe”

“Nope, No help needed, I can find my own way”

“I’ve always done it before”

“Why should it be any different today?”

“Why would I need your money? I’ll get along just fine”

“I’d rather eat nothing than on your pity to dine”

“Being left alone too long teaches you some things,

Don’t rely on others, and the hope that they may bring”

“In the end, you will see, all of it was false, and the hurt from the hoping cost you so much more than what was lost.”

So don’t look to others, you can do it alone

No matter what they promise

You are safer in your own

There is a price to pay

For each hand that they hold out

To trust them one more time

Can only cause more doubt

But sometimes it just feels

As if this prison cell

Is closing in on me

And I can’t breath so well

What if there is ONE Whose TRUTH DOESN’T FAIL?

Could I learn to trust again and leave this prison cell?

My fear is greater than my faith, LORD help me take the leap

And Jump into Your Arms at last, My All Sufficiency to keep.

by Rhonda de la Moriniere