“I will give you treasures from the darkness and hidden wealth of secret places, so that you may know that it is I, the Lord, the God of Israel, who calls you by your name”………Isa.45:3
I was surrounded by darkness the night I fell to my knees. There was a light shining from the corner of my room but the pain pouring out of my wounded heart left me trapped in darkness. I was crying tears different from any others that have ever fallen from my eyes. Each one that slid down my cheek felt like poison. I thought my life would end that night not from anything other than a completely crushed spirit. Truth was not one part of my heart could handle another dose of abuse. I believed there was no way out of this “cage” of darkness I found myself in that night.
As I sobbed, I was overcome with the idea to pray to God. This could not have been my idea after all, here I was a dirty, lost girl who had not only turned her back on God but completely shut Him out as I barely held on to the bars of my cage that held me captive in sin and darkness.
I convinced myself prayer was certainly not going to work. “God is not going to hear your cry for help. Think about what you have done and who you have become. God does not care to hear from you. It is too late, you are too damaged for Him to fix. He wants you to pay for all of the awful things you have done. He cannot care for someone who has become what you have become; a shameful disgrace.” These thoughts were truly the soundtrack playing in my head on repeat and someone kept turning up the volume.
In an instant, God’s Spirit took over and turned down the volume on the lies running rampant through my mind. With silence filling the room, I began to pray with the only words I was able to muster up from the shattered mess of my heart, “Please God, help me. I keep going back to him and I know I have to stop but I can’t do it. Please God, please do it all for me.”
To my complete surprise God took the shame filled puddle of tears I was knelt in that night and surrounded me with His grace. His love came down for me and shattered each bar holding me in my cage. I truly found God when I felt Him kiss my heart with the words I had searched for my whole life from anyone other than Him, “I love you Diane”. In that moment I knew these words were true and came directly from God’s heart to mine.
For the first time in my life the words “I love you” were not an empty phrase used to convince me of something I never felt. Instead His love showed me that when I was sinning He was working. When I was refusing to let Him in He was waiting patiently for me to come back to Him. When my room was filling with darkness His Light found me. When I cried out He heard me and didn’t call out my shame but instead called me by my name. When I asked Him to do it all for me He did more than I could ever think or imagine.
God replaced the lies that locked me in a cage with His truth that unlocked the darkness of that cage and brought me into His glorious light.
Truth is we can all relate with these dark cages of fear, abuse, depression, loneliness, sin. God wants me to share a secret with you, one that Satan does not want you to hear, God Himself is holding the key to set you free he just needs you to cry out for help. No matter how dark your cage or how trapped you feel God’s love is always able to unlock your cage and bring you into His light.
Before I encountered God’s infinite love for me that dreary night I would have never believed the very words I just wrote to you. God has done a miracle in my life. It is my sincere prayer that as you soak in what God has done in my life you open your heart to receive the many treasures He is preparing from the darkness you have found yourself in.
coveredinpink 