Lay it Down

Lay it Down

 

I see the color of my pain and I look to you for healing God, you say lovingly, ”lay it down.”

I see the chains on my wrists and I cry for freedom, you say it intensely, “Open up to me.”

Holy Spirit open my eyes, Truth and life fill me, you say softly, sadly, “Let it go.”

I am tired of hurting tired of running, you say again, “lay it down.”

 

I turn and see in a reflection in a mirror of my spirit…. Dry, crippled, weak, and spent, like bones with skin barely attached. Eyes hollow with death but as captivating as it all is to just stare and stare at the decrepit image before me, my eyes are drawn to something else, something I grasp with unequaled, relentless grip in my hands. It’s the weapon that created the wounds that I now sit and lick. Around my neck hangs the key to the chains that hold me in bondage. Words are carved deep into the key “Truth, Life” and then I see words in the cuffs of the chains that hold me they were cut so deep that my wrists are branded with the words: “Lonely, depressed, angry, anxious.” The key around my neck I have held for years and years, like a treasure I hold it to my heart but I never let it touch my chains. My hand grows weary as I try to hold onto the weapon like club that is almost an extension of me, it hangs by my feeble grasp. It also has words carved deep into the wood: “Shame, fear, regret, unforgiveness.”

Then as I watched the reflection of me, I began to hit myself over and over and over again, all the while never able to see that I was the cause of my own torture. My gaze looks to the heavens and  I scream, “why God? I you loved me you would free me, you would heal me, why God, do I suffer so?” I shake my key at him and say, “I have held this key for years and I still am bound by these chains. It doesn’t work.”

 It starts raining, the image of me is now of a child, and as I look up into the sky I see that it was not rain at all but tears, the tears of the father, pouring out over his child who was trapped within her own small little world of struggle and pain. As I started to hit myself over and over again God spoke, ”lay it down, lay it down, lay it down, please lay it down.” But as I wore that key like a cross necklace around my neck it became religion and not the life freeing gift it was meant to be. The weapon and the chains had been forged by a great enemy long ago, an enemy long gone because now I had become my own tormentor. it was me that stayed in captivity to sins and her shame of the past. Every time the Spirit, the Son and the Father attempted to free me, I shook my weapon that now had become empowered by bitterness. “If only you loved me enough to free me.”  And in those dark moments I would coil back into my tears and cry and cry for I desperately desired to be free. The rain increased in intensity only this time a voice came through the clouds, “Please open up to me, please use the gift I have given you. He is truth, He is the key to freedom, and here you sit one accepting word away from life and yet you tarry. You cry that I have left you but I have not, but we cannot stay in this place of death, we must live in the light, in life, in truth. You have to leave your past in order to be free. Open up and then lay it down, Open up, and then lay it down. Shame is not my nature. Regret is a powerful hindrance to freedom. Fear is only present in the absence of trust and faith. You need my fruit, but if your hands are bound and full of torture then you can not grasp the goodness I have for you. Lay it down! Take the gift of Christ’s redemption, sanctification and pure love filled forgiveness and grace and enter into the bounty of the treasure I have for you. Faith, Hope, And LOVE, mercy, kindness, gentleness, goodness, faithfulness, self control, peace, patience, and Joy. If you lack any one of these things, then you know what you must do. You must quit torturing yourself, accept his forgiveness, lay down your self torture, take the key and unlock those chains. Use the key, Open it up and be free, free to receive my love. But you must lay down all of your unforgiveness, all of it. The Spirit needs more room. Allow room for me by offering up the worship of a heart that is open to forgive, for if you think you have much to forgive, think of the great depth of all I have forgiven.

The rain stops, I slowly but courageously set the club down on the ground, take the key from my neck and unlocks the chains. A weight is lifted, a freedom comes, I stands still very broken, still very bruised. “Heal Me Lord?”

 “Now I can! Now your healing begins. Those chains are gone forever. You have the Spirit of Love, Joy, peace, patients, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness and self control living inside of you instead.” “But my scars?” do not mistake a gentle reminder of the pain of bondage, for shame. What I have made free is free indeed. The enemy will shout at you but a gentle answer turns away wrath, and much more gentle can you get than this. You are my beloved and I am yours, Nothing can separate you from my love! No angel or Demon, No height or depth, nor life or death, my love is stronger than the grave. I have loved you with an everlasting love. You are my beloved. You are my bride and when the fire of hell wages on in all of its violence it is but a flicker in a dying fire and when the enemy points to your scars that you bare and tries to bring you to your knees in shame, take my hand and hold it up for the world to see, Show the enemy my nail scared hands and the scar in my side that took the sword, and you tell him that there is no better reminder than a scar to tell the story of great and marvelous love. Then ask him where his scars are, for he never paid any great price for anything he has ever taken, he is a thief and knows nothing of sacrifice and nothing of love. Hold your head high my beloved. You are a new and beautiful wonder. Let us walk a path of reconciliation, a path of finding others who need my love, who need my freedom. And together we will say…

lay it down, lay it down, lay it down”