It Resonates Deeply

It is hard to believe a month from now I will celebrate the anniversary of receiving an email which would change my life forever. I should have known it was coming. A woman told us as much in a time of prayer a month before it happened. Even though it was not a total surprise, it was still a complete shock.

Looking back now, I can also say it was grace. It began a long process of becoming unglued from a place where I had invested and lived my life, and from a people to whom I had given my whole heart. I do not know if I would have survived being torn from it suddenly, without any time to prepare my heart for the severing. God was gracious to give me a year to adjust to what I knew would come. Still it hurt, the kind of hurt which you know you will carry with you until all hurts are washed away by the wonder of heaven.

This weekend I heard a phrase, which may be familiar to you, but it is one I do not ever remember hearing. Maybe, I had never taken notice of it before because it simply did not resonate with my soul. Now, upon hearing it, it resonates deeply. The kind of deep in your gut visceral feeling which make you know, in ways you cannot yet put to words, the reverberation you felt when you heard this truth has changed something inside of you. At the sound of the words, an understanding was born in my spirit which has become a way point on my journey. It gives not only a sense of where I am, but where I am called to go. It is freeing and exciting and a bit terrifying all at once.

I realize what I heard may not resonate with you in quite the same way. Maybe your journey has not yet taken you down the path I have walked the past two years. More than likely, however, many of you have walked this way before or y...

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...deeply in my soul, it has not changed my circumstance. In this place of unknowing, however, this truth has given me clarity on how I will live now, and into the future. I cannot yet see the destination, but I walk with confidence knowing I am on the right path.

I do not care if ever again I am called pastor, or professor, or writer, or preacher, so long as the Spirit of God is at work in me, manifesting my faith in love and freedom, and in doing so, growing me into a person who He can use to encourage others to take risk of laying aside hurt and walking in freedom. This is the ancient path. This is the good way. If I but walk in it, my soul will find rest and be free.

After experiencing the internal change brought about through this simple phrase, I feel like singing the old spiritual, “Free at last, free at last, I thank God all mighty, I am free at last.”