EXILE

"The cowering prisoners will soon be set free;

they will not die in their dungeon,

nor will they lack bread.

For I am the Lord your God,

who churns up the sea so that its

waves roar--

the Lord Almighty is his name.

I have put my words in your mouth

and covered you with the shadow of

my hand--

I who set the heavens in place,

who laid the foundations of the earth,

and who say to Zion, 

"You are my people."

Isaiah 51: 14-16

The cowering prisoners will soon be set free.

They will be 

SET FREE.

I heard a sermon last night about those living in Exile.

Unwanted, unheard, and unalive.

They are living in this pit of sin and they don't feel like they can get out.

They are trapped.

Hurting.

And Suffocating.

Two people got up to give their testimonies last night. 

One of them was my prayer leader.

And he got up there and said how he had grown up in a Christian home.

Accepted Jesus when he was 12.

And continued to pursue Him all the way through college.

Then he transferred to UGA.

And he started trying to find his "identity" in something other than Jesus.

He slowly slipped away from God and into a long depression.

And he

COULD NOT GET OUT.

Or at least that's how he felt.

He felt trapped and unable to climb out of that pit by himself.

But four guys befriended him.

They loved on him.

And they poured into him.

And then they brought him to a college ministry one night.

And the Lord lifted that depression off of him.

And he was healed.

He was on medications, antidepressants, and seeing all kinds of different therapists.

But the Lord took all of that away from him.

He pulled him out of that pit.

My purpose in telling this story is not to say that the Lord heals all things and that if you go to church all your pain will be gone.

No.

I believe the Lord CAN heal all things and He could if He wanted to.

But He has a specific plan for everyone's life, and often times, He puts you through those hard things to make you stronger, better, wiser.

My real purpose in telling this story is to say that there are all kinds of "exiles" in the world.

Most go unnoticed.

Silently hurting.

Slowly fading.

I was one of them for a time.

Unwilling to let the world see me for who I was inside.

Unable to show the pain and self hatred I had for myself.

I have struggled with that self hatred for many years now.

Not being pretty enough.

Not being thin enough.

Not being GOOD enough.

And that has been a constant inner battle with me for the last few years.

But I can honestly say today that I realized something last week.

I don't have that self hatred anymore.

I don't look at a picture and wish that I saw someone completely different standing there.

Sure.

I have my days.

Who doesn't?

But I am not constantly focused on those things.

The Lord has taken them away from me.

He has set me FREE.

I know this probably sounds way supernatural or something of the sort.

Or maybe it doesn't.

But God can do all things.

And He let me fall to my lowest point this summer.

I was hurting for all the wrong reasons.

Some self hatred.

Some self pity.

BOTH sinful.

And BOTH hard to get out of.

But He slowly brought me back to Him.

It's funny how God does things.

He lets us get to our absolutely lowest point before He draws us back to Himself once and for all.

He lets us hit ground zero before He picks us up and says "Ok. That's enough. Now run back to me."

It's hard to say that I was still following God during my darkest hours.

Because I know I wasn't.

I still loved Him.

But I felt so far gone that He could do nothing for me.

HE CAN.

And He will.

Whether it be in this life, or the next.

"The cowering prisoners will soon be set free"

He came to set us free.

He lived to set us free.

He DIED an agonizing, brutal, and horrifying death to set us free.

And He will.

LOVE the EXILES.

For you may have been one of them...

Forever His,

Rachel