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I’ve just spent the last 24 hours in prison, and I’m desperate to get out. This is terrifying.
I’m locked in, isolated. No friends, no family, I’m separated from the rest of the world. I’m claustrophobic. Need fresh air. I need something to drink. Something to eat. Just a little something sweet. It would make things better. Easier to take. Just a little something to make me feel better.
I’ve been here before. And I know it gets worse the longer I’m here – frightening and exhausting. How long ‘til I get out? What will it take this time?
Freedom is precious. I know because I’ve experienced it. I know what it’s like to be out from under oppression. But now I’m back behind bars. My prison bars – not bars of iron, but of addiction.
Sugar addiction. Stronger at times than bars of iron. These hold me indefinitely, with no scheduled release, no one to turn to, no one even to notice I’m incarcerated. No one to care.
This prison of mine is called Relapse.
Getting abstinent in the first place was miraculous release from my life-long oppression of compulsive eating. The thrill of liberation was unspeakable. But in my freedom, I remain forever on parole. One slip-up, and I’m back in the slammer. For a day, a week, for longer, I’m locked up, unable to function normally, obsessed with where my next fix is coming from.
This isn’t where God wants me. I’m driven here, compelled. I do what I would not do, just like Paul. I self-soothe because I don’t believe - not really - that He can help me. I have to manage this. And in the process, I manage nothing but to land back in this jail cell.
Is my God bigger than my problem? Can He handle this? I know in my head that He can, but I’m running on fear and am afraid to let go of my familiar stronghold. I struggle in vain. Retching, wrenching, tearing my hair. Agony.
Only to collapse in emotional exhaustion, knowing that I can’t work my way out of this, I can’t force it. I have to let go and let Him lead me out of my prison, my self-torture masquerading as self-soothing. He’s bigger than my problem, and bigger than all the little ones that lead me into it.
So I can choose for this next 24 hours to believe that God is bigger than my addiction, that He can free this captive. And if not for the next 24 hours, than for just the next hour, or even just this moment. He is the path to freedom. He is freedom. His gift to me is freedom. I can have it for nothing more than trusting Him.
I choose to trust. I’m free.
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