Enslaved no longer!

Beth Moore Galatians Bible Study week 4, day one: 

Galatians 4:3-5 ESV

“In the same way we also, when we were children, were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world. But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.”

Beth Moore encouraged us to consider the ways we have been enslaved under the elementary principles of the world. I tried to answer this with examples from my past but I knew that was a cop out. My answer needed to confront my present. Specifically, the ties that bind me to my need for my mother’s acceptance and approval in all their painful vividness.

In my recent time of needing to be surrounded, accepted and nurtured in a safe place of family, I am instead met with her derision and disapproval; always falling far short of who she thinks she wants me to be.

I’m a nurse. I have defenses against the dark arts of emotional attack, typically, but those defenses are overwhelmed right now and it is so abruptly wounding even when I recognize her dementia driven angst. 

My need is so great, my emotions so close to my surface, I am so easily bruised…

But!!! I have not been left in my enslavement. I have been given a new life of growing fully into the freedom offered in Jesus. He reminds me that I live by different rules now. Rules fueled by love/acceptance freely given b/c of my irrevocable binding to Jesus Himself!

Wow! 

And as if that wasn’t enough, there’s more! His irrevocable binding will, in turn, fuel my healing and eventual acceptance of my mom. 

Double Wow! (Mom upside down)

He never ceases to amaze me with how He always answers with so much more than I think or imagine. And His living, breathing Word meets me at the point of my need even when I think I’m behind in my studies.

I love that Guy!

Anne

May 5, 2021