By: Mweni Chola
The Beginning and the Cause
I had been through enough in my life to not let my lips know the taste of alcohol more than they do anything else, I have lost enough people to the hands of death to prevent my whole being from blaming and cursing the God who gives and takes. Why did you give if you knew you would take the only real thing you have ever given me?
The aftermath of losing my parents in less than 4 months is a race into the arms of every man who said he cared. Tirelessly searching for warmth in contaminated bodies hence defiling the temple I have been instructed to keep holy. Searching for wholeness in one body after the next, looking for sobriety in one bottle after the next. Can you blame a girl who tried all she could to fill the void of an absent father and a present but never available mother? The trauma of being and feeling alone everyday, exposing some skin to gain the attention she craved from male figures even though she knew they too wouldn’t stay.
I called sin by names only I knew, a consistent and ever present “friend”.
But not all friendships last, this one more than any other was destined for a catastrophic end.
The Search for Freedom
Before my father passed, he always told me nothing is more important than prayer, my mother would back him by reminding me that there was no way I would be able to hide from the presence of my maker. Words I buried along with their bodies. But after living a life I knew wasn’t mine and only finding temporal pleasure, my heart redirected me to the only light that was permanent.
How do you call upon the name of God when your sins stare at you in disgust?
How do you go back home when you burnt the house down before you left?
How do you say “I am sorry father” when you said He never deserved to be called that?
This is how I did it, I remembered His love keeps no record of wrong and His arms were always stretched out wide waiting for my return.
I remembered I have always had a Savior and I just needed to do my part by confessing with my mouth that Jesus is Lord and believing in my heart that God raised him from the dead.
At last, I rededicated my life back to the one who I should have always lived for.
***
I am sleeping on my bed face down comforting the sheets that have been temporarily stained by tears of guilt. He continues to whisper in my ear things I don’t want to hear, his voice is so loud it clouds the little hope I had. Not once, not twice but every night…almost every day of my life.
The question of whether or not I deserve this seat at the table of the righteous after having had submerged my soul in the deadliest of sins. Knowing I have been cleansed but not believing hence not feeling like it.
“You are a sinner and that will never change” he says
And because I did not know anything else, I obey and and cover my head with a wet pillow.
After hours of struggle and the devil’s voice disappearing, I fall asleep. More like entering a whole new world But I hear a very gentle voice, I instantly realize it’s perfect opposite of the one that torments me so I start running towards it and now I will tell you, I will tell you, that first lift of my feet to run marked the beginning of me chasing and running towards eternity. The closer I got, the clearer and louder the voice got. He was saying;
“You are free, you are free through me!” and for the first time I found comfort and assurance in a voice. I felt peace I knew new existed, I felt truly free.
I wake up and I open the Bible that religiously sits beside my bed and the first scripture I see is John 8:34-36 “Jesus answered, “I assure you and most solemnly say to you, everyone who practices sin habitually is a slave of sin. Now the slave does not remain in a household forever; the son [of the master] does remain forever. So if the Son makes you free, then you are unquestionably free.”
You and I are UNQUESTIONABLY Free!.
The only truth I know now is that there is nothing the Son can’t set us free from.
Our guilt is a member of the enemy's army that blinds us from this truth.
May we never forget the price that was paid for these sins we think we have to carry on our backs forever, may we never forget that we’re new creations in Christ, no stain, no contamination.
We are free indeed!
