Moving Forward- Part 6

I had to cling to the promises God gave me in the middle of the covid nightmare to begin the process of moving forward. I needed to read, re-read, and meditate on Isaiah 54 often. When you get in a pit, it’s easy to feel like you’ll never get out. That’s how I felt. The longer we struggled, the more of a toll it took on me. Can you imagine being in a real pit and trying to make your way out? You try so hard to pull yourself out, but with each step you take, all you do is slip in the mud. You end up going deeper into the pit. I don’t think you can get out of the pit alone. The only one who can get you out is God.

Part of my struggle, on top of everything else, was unforgiveness. I was holding on tightly to unforgiveness with a white-knuckle grip. I don’t feel it’s important to go into what/who I needed to forgive. It’s irrelevant now. What I can tell you is that when you live with unforgiveness, you live in prison. It’s willfully drinking poison.

One of my hands held tightly to God’s promises, the other tightly held to unforgiveness. Unforgiveness became like a noose around my neck. The unforgiveness in my life became paralyzing. I was getting to the point I couldn’t even pray. I had to reach out to someone from my church to pray for me. It was scary. It’s something I never want to experience again.

The moment when complete freedom came was when I yelled out to God- “I forgive! I’m so sorry! Please forgive me for my unforgiveness.”

Just like that, chains came off and I was free! Sometimes you don’t truly know what bondage is, until you experience freedom. That was the beginning of my move forward. I’m also thankful for a small group at Storyside I was attending at the time. They may never know or understand how that was so helpful and important to my husband and me. I could now use BOTH hands to hold on to God’s promises.