Today's Unshackled Echo was previously published on
February 24, 2015.
As I worked on what I planned to post as today's UM, I received a notification that a cousin had tagged me in a Facebook post. She'd posted the link to the song "Fear" by Blue October. She wrote that she'd listened to the song and thought of me, so she thought she'd share. She didn't feel certain about her reasons for sharing, and if she doesn't know, I certainly don't.
Maybe she simply saw me in the song or parts of the song, or maybe God gave her a nudge Perhaps both are true. I know I related to several parts of the song, and I felt God stir some thoughts within me. So, I set aside the writing I'd begun for another day, and well, here we are.
The song begins: All my life / Been running from a pain in me / A feeling I don't understand / Holding me down / Rain on me / Underwater / All I am, getting harder / A heavy weight / I carry around.
Today / I don't have to fall apart / I don't have to be afraid / I don't have to let the damage consume me, / My shadow see through me
I most certainly relate to the above. It grabbed me right away that once again Justin Furstenfeld tapped into my life, mind and or emotions to find inspiration for his lyrics. I did run from a pain in my life that I could never quite escape from or cover up completely. My father told me the other day that I lost my joy and all the crazy that I embraced and bathed in as a teen and beyond came from a desperate attempt to find my joy again, anywhere and everywhere but in God, where it'd first been. I hadn't thought of it that way, but he was right. I lost my joy as a child, and the void created by that loss filled with pain and with fear. it almost killed me.
Today I don't have to fall apart or be afraid or allow the damage of the past consume me, at least not for any longer than it takes me to turn my eyes to Jesus and cry out "Son of David! Have mercy on me!" See, the only part of Blue October's song that didn't resonate with me was the solution, lines like Believe in yourself And you will walk.
If you've got a past anything like mine, you know better by now than to believe in yourself as any type of solution. If it can be screwed up, I'll find a way to do it. If it is possible to fail and fall short, that's exactly what will happen when I put my best into it, at least that's true with the important stuff such as oh, I don't know, life. If I'd heard this song before I found freedom from addiction I'd have felt hopelessness instead of the thankfulness I felt this morning. I've known since I was about 5 that I couldn't be counted on for long.
But there is One who is always faithful, who does indeed have the power to protect and deliver from fear, to heal our pain and restore our past. His name is Jesus, and He feels our pain and fear and hurt in His gut. Remember that time you got that horrible news that made you feel like a mule kicked you in the stomach and you forgot how to breathe? That's what Jesus felt too. That's what He always feels when your tears threaten to fall. That's what it means when the Bible says Jesus was "moved with compassion."
He hurts with us and for us, but He's not afraid, because He's not weak like us. He never failed and quite simply is as incapable of failure as I am of perfection. He doesn't want us to be afraid. The messengers of God always began by saying, "Fear Not!" For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. 2 Timothy 1:7.
Abba, I thank You for the desire and willingness to heal as much of my past as I will give You. Thank you for being trustworthy. You have to the power to heal and restore, so I don't have to keep trying to do the impossible and make myself whole through my efforts. Help me to give You all of me, good and bad...past, present and future, so that I can be completely restored. Help me to remember that I can believe in You, in who You are and Your great love for me, and in the power of that belief I can walk through life without fear, regardless of how often I've failed on my own, regardless of the circumstances, no matter how dark the valley of the shadow of death becomes. Amen.
Today I don't have to fall apart or be afraid or allow the damage of the past consume me, at least not for any longer than it takes me to turn my eyes to Jesus and cry out "Son of David! Have mercy on me!" See, the only part of Blue October's song that didn't resonate with me was the solution, lines like Believe in yourself And you will walk.
If you've got a past anything like mine, you know better by now than to believe in yourself as any type of solution. If it can be screwed up, I'll find a way to do it. If it is possible to fail and fall short, that's exactly what will happen when I put my best into it, at least that's true with the important stuff such as oh, I don't know, life. If I'd heard this song before I found freedom from addiction I'd have felt hopelessness instead of the thankfulness I felt this morning. I've known since I was about 5 that I couldn't be counted on for long.
But there is One who is always faithful, who does indeed have the power to protect and deliver from fear, to heal our pain and restore our past. His name is Jesus, and He feels our pain and fear and hurt in His gut. Remember that time you got that horrible news that made you feel like a mule kicked you in the stomach and you forgot how to breathe? That's what Jesus felt too. That's what He always feels when your tears threaten to fall. That's what it means when the Bible says Jesus was "moved with compassion."
He hurts with us and for us, but He's not afraid, because He's not weak like us. He never failed and quite simply is as incapable of failure as I am of perfection. He doesn't want us to be afraid. The messengers of God always began by saying, "Fear Not!" For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. 2 Timothy 1:7.
Abba, I thank You for the desire and willingness to heal as much of my past as I will give You. Thank you for being trustworthy. You have to the power to heal and restore, so I don't have to keep trying to do the impossible and make myself whole through my efforts. Help me to give You all of me, good and bad...past, present and future, so that I can be completely restored. Help me to remember that I can believe in You, in who You are and Your great love for me, and in the power of that belief I can walk through life without fear, regardless of how often I've failed on my own, regardless of the circumstances, no matter how dark the valley of the shadow of death becomes. Amen.
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