:: Freed to Freer ::

[Lucky you guys!  You get two posts in two days!]

 

“Through you I am saying to the prisoners of darkness, ‘Come out! I am giving you your freedom!‘ They will be my sheep, grazing in green pastures and on hills that were previously bare.

They will neither hunger nor thirst.  The searing sun and scorching desert winds will not reach them anymore. For the Lord in his mercy will lead them beside cool waters.

And I will make my mountains into level paths for them. The highways will be raised above the valleys.

Sing for joy, O heavens! Rejoice, O earth! Burst into song, O mountains! For the Lord has comforted his people and will have compassion on them in their sorrow.“

Isaiah 49:9-11, 13

 

I came across this passage yesterday in my time with God (can you tell Isaiah is my fav book  of the Bible?).  It reminded me of why I wanted to go back to school to get my Master’s in Marital and Family Therapy, even why I went into ministry in the first place.

God, in His grace, has freed me from so much captivity: captivity to an eating disorder, captivity to depression, captivity to anxiety, captivity to negative thinking, captivity to negative behaviors, captivity to obsessive compulsiveness…so much darkness and barrenness in my life.  In this passage He calls those previously freed to become the freers. How can I read this and not respond??  How can I be so unbelievably freed and just watch others drown in captivity??

My prayer is that this passage would reflect who I am as a therapist, that God would use my life to free others, to lead them to LIFE abundant, to lead them to His goodness.

:: The Sound of Music…ish ::

It’s been a while since I’ve shared any of my weird freaky dreams, and since I had such a vivid one last night, I thought I’d indulge!

So last night, I dreamt it was me and RJ’s second wedding. Same type of venue, a beautiful beach setting, except it wasn’t NASNI Coronado. It was more of a really spread out and open white sand beach, except I couldn’t see the water. Hmm…maybe that makes it not a beach then. Whatever the case, it was bright, open, white, and happy.

Moving onto the wedding reception, somehow my parents’ old kitchen table, which currently resides at Jenny and Alby’s house, was present as the head table. It fit the beach theme well, due to the pastelly colors. Kristin catered the whole thing, for all the guests and even the work staff singlehandedly.

On our way back to the hotel, we somehow (by we, I mean the entire wedding) got trapped inside the resort, under seige by some other country (thus The Sound of Music…ish) and we needed to flee for our lives. We needed to travel stealthily throughout the day and recruited people (who happened to be students at UCR) with special skills to help us escape. Somewhere in there, someone suggested a trip to Las Vegas when we got out. I guess our wedding was at a beach by Vegas?

In the end, we found a hole in the attic floor with a zipline. It was our only hope, but in the process we’d be moving targets for the enemy. One girl proceeded to test her weight on it, and slipped and fell. We thought she was a gonor, but then we heard her yell for us. Apparently, there was a trap door where she landed and it was an escape route, an underground tunnel sort of deal to let prisoners free out of the resort. There was even a landing pad so it wouldn’t hurt.

For some reason when we escaped, I felt such a rush of relief and freedom, and was overwhelmed by emotions and said, “I’m so glad they made this underground railroad! Last time was so much harder to escape!” So I guess I had been under seige at that resort before and last time there was no easy escape? And I was foolish enough to come back, nay, have my wedding there?

I remember waking up and feeling the relief of freedom from perceived oppression, and thinking, I’m glad Jesus set us free. I know, randomly connected, but it was one of the first thoughts in my mind.

So. That was my dream. I slept a good solid 12 hours last night.