I recently spent some time with a woman who, bless her heart, is controlled and imprisoned by her intense jealousy of pretty much everything.  I know this to be true because a) she told me of this struggle and b) her actions show it.  In all she says and does.

I see the  suffocating chains that cover her and hold her down. I see how those chains impact her every move.  I see how those chains, those wretched wounds, control her every decision, her every move.  I see how those chains impact her relationships.

It makes me sad.

Those chains are named “hurt” and some go by “lies”.  Some like to be called “wounds”, some answer to the “perfect syndrome”. There are countless names.

They control so much and are so ugly.

JJ and I were talking this afternoon and I mentioned how sad I felt for her  – how she is basically held hostage by these chains and they continue to strap her down.

Then that sweet man of mine exhibited one of the characteristics I adore about him the most.

He said, “We all have insecurities and jealousies.  Just about different things.  Yours, for example, is the fear of abandonment – that I’m going to leave someday.  That you don’t trust men and I’m going to end up to be just another male in your life that leaves.”

For crying out loud.  I was just trying to get lunch on the table.

And yet, he is so very correct.  Man, he forces me to move.  But you read last Monday’s post so you know that.

My sweet friend, Erin from Home’s Where My Heart Is, wrote to me this week and reminded me that I have been “washed by the water”.  I don’t have to allow those chains to suffocate me because there is one that is stronger than they and can chisel them off and release me from their visceral clutch.

I am set free in that cleansing.  I am washed by the water and am as white as snow. (Psalm 51:7)

My gratitude list continues…

31.  I have a Jesus that cleanses me and makes me as white as snow.

32.  I have a husband that forces me to remove the log from my own eye.

33.  My sweet Sawyer is becoming a little person – we can now have conversations and he can grab my face and tell me that he loves me.

34.  That he then asks, in a whisper to my ear, “Can I have chocolate cereal when I wake up?”

35.  I don’t care that he’s buttering me up because he melts my soul.

36.  As we were walking hand-in-hand on a neighborhood sidewalk today, Susannah told me that I was ” a better mommy than I could have ever hoped for while I was in your tummy.”  Can we say precious?

37.  JJ has given me the green light to attend the Relevant Conference this upcoming October.  I am ecstatic.

38.  Sweet corn and melon from Knox County and a visit from some of JJ’s family this past weekend.

39.  I took an hour and a half nap today after sleeping in until 9:30.  Gasp.

40.  The courage that God gives me to be transparent, to be real.  To share my pain and the bad decisions I have made along the way so that God’s grace can be exhibited and no one feels that a follower of Jesus must be perfect.

May you be blessed today with a chisel to start removing your own chains, whatever they may be named.  May you pound away at them until they are no longer there, until you feel their heavy weight drop to the floor with a thundering clank.  May you allow them to stay there and enable yourself to be “washed by the water.”

May you be free.