My website went down recently. That is, links to all the posts suddenly quit working. To get the site running right again, I had to install a new theme. When I installed the new theme, some things went haywire.

As a well-known children’s book illustrates so well: “If you give a mouse a cookie,” it never just stops there.

And so, after dealing rather frantically with major website issues, I’ve settled into doing “a little, along” to fix the minor stuff. In the process, I’ve found some uh-ohs buried back in my archives, and some delightful things too.

Among the latter are five brief posts, published at different times, that all declare a choice I’m making or a promise I’m believing.

Four of the five simply quote song lyrics or a Scripture that expresses my heart. Each links to the corresponding song on YouTube.

The remaining post, though short, is much more explicit. In a sense, it fleshes out all the other four. It’s titled, I choose light.

I wrote that post while standing at a major crossroads in my life. If I took one path, the words I had written would be lies. They would sound bold, and mean nothing. If I took the other path, I would be going with God. And more fully than ever before, I would be letting go of everything and everyone else.

What I see in retrospect

You see, for me, coming out from blindness has been directly linked with coming out from bondage, especially bondage to abusive systems that identify themselves with Christ.

I was born into these systems. The “coming out” has been long, painful, messy. And also, profoundly freeing and life-giving. It’s only in looking back that I see how very far I’ve come – in fits and starts, in times of catapulting forward, as well as times of being very confused, very alone, very stuck.

From today’s perspective, I also see:

Even when I’ve stood alone, I have not been alone. For also from my birth, the Lord “took me up.” In my childhood, he called me Spirit-to-spirit to be born anew. Afterward, as I grew arrogant, then rebelled, and returned, and yet remained double-minded and so unwary for so very long, he remained faithful. He kept calling me to himself, to see one more thing, to shed one more thing, to take one more step, in him.

Even though I cannot live out any commitment perfectly, I can set my heart toward it and use my voice to affirm it. And that matters. A lot.

Especially it matters in regard to this commitment: “If you declare with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved” (Rom. 10:9).

In the moment the Spirit of God first asked me, “Will you take this Risen One to be your Lord?” my heart said, “Yes.” Soon after, I declared it aloud. I didn’t realize then how profoundly I needed saving from the very systems that taught me that verse. I didn’t realize it for a very long time.

Yet each time I’ve reaffirmed the yes I first said to Jesus at the age of 8, I’ve opened myself anew to his Spirit working in me and his grace extended to me.

What I can say by grace

Today, with gratitude, I say again what I declared in publishing each of these posts.

I choose light. Decades after I first said yes to Jesus, I stumbled around, stuck in the fog – confused as to what was good and what was evil, what was true and what was not. Yet my Lord knew I wanted to see. And he kept showing me what I needed to know to be free.

I let go. “I let go of all I have, just to have all of You.” – Worth It All, Meredith Andrews

I’ll run. “I’ll run. I’m gonna run this race to hear You say, ‘Well done.’” – Well Done, Moriah Peters

I’ll rest. By your grace, Lord, I won’t resist when you say, “Come and rest here. Come and lay your burdens down.” – Here, Kari Jobe

I’ll reign in life. Okay. I haven’t yet published this exact blog post. Instead, I said it the long way, in a book. The Esther Blessing: Grace to Reign in Life unwraps the promise of Romans 5:17:

Those who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ. (NKJV)

I’ve learned: Both grace and reigning look different from what we may have thought. Neither is tied to living “happily ever after” on earth. So even in trauma and chaos, by grace, I can reign in life.

I’ll reap in joy. For Psalm 126 promises, “They that sow in tears shall reap in joy.” (If you click through, you’ll find a song for that one, too.)

Thank you, Lord, that every heartfelt yes, said to you by your Beloved, releases to us your grace.

Thank you that we can set our hearts to live in sync with yours, because you have made the way.

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Image by Thomas Breher from Pixabay