Last night, I burned a stack of old pictures. Yes. Burned. We have a fire “pit” in our back yard, I threw in the pictures, etc and lit a fire to them.
A couple of weeks ago, God reminded me of the kind of heart I used to have and told me that is no longer true. The only problem was that I was still living in some of the habit & the regret of the brokenness that came along with it. I had not realized it until the Lord pointed it out. At the beginning of March, I finally let go of all that regret and received God’s Love into my life for the first time in years. Then fast forward two weeks to last night. I was studying His Word, prayed afterward and the Spirit whispered in my heart, “there are several pictures of this and that upstairs in your cabinet, go get them.” So I went and flipped through a couple of photo books and started taking out all these pictures. It was obvious what they were, a lot of posed friends with smiling faces that had lots of memories behind them. As I finished I realized they all represented having my heart broken over and over and over again, and I was holding on to it all, like the ‘high places’ I talked about a couple of days ago. I was going to just tear them up and throw them away, then I heard God say in my heart, “burn them.” Ok? Just where am I supposed to do that? “Burn them in the ‘fire pit’ out back.” Oh.
I stood there watching a lot of memories burn and I prayed. Thank you, God for giving me beauty for ashes. Isaiah 61:3, “To appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that he might be glorified.”(KJV, bible.com) I also had plenty of regret from those years, but God still used them to transform me into the person I’ve become. Joel 2:25, “I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten..” (NIV, biblos.com) Romans 8:28, “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” (NIV, biblos.com) I am beyond thankful for my amazing husband, for my four sweet children, for every single ounce of my life as it is. God truly is in the business of restoration.
I’m so thankful that He carries me daily, freeing me from guilt, regret, & ‘high places’.
After posting this a friend of mine gave it a name, soul ties! Take a minute to do a Google search on it! I'm astounded at how the enemy can use material belongings to hold us captive to another person (or people) from our past! When I burned these pictures, I didn't realize God was breaking some soul ties I had made, but He did exactly that!! The are broken for the first time since! <3 Seriously, do the search and ask God if it describes you!!! <3
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