Real Struggles, Real Hope

What is the Writing on Your Wall?

In the gospel of John we read, “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” (John 8:32). Let me share a personal encounter. In my mind’s eye, a little girl crouches in a dark and cluttered hallway closet. Mountains of stuff fill this tiny room where she remains hidden from everyone and everything. Besides the stuff of anger and doubt in this small space, the walls have writing on them that names the fears, insecurities, and reasons for shielding herself from the unfamiliar and the unknown. Many times, the little girl tries to exit her safe place. With a mask of self-prescribed extroversion, she determinedly leaves the four walls of her secret domain to be good at things and people--a good student, wife, even a mother. Hesitantly, she tells herself that hope and joy are within reach. But after a short stay away from the security of the hallway closet, the little girl goes back inside and continues hiding from life.

I was that young girl, and I built the four walls around myself to be a shield from discomfort and pain. There were times I tried leaving that closet to achieve something that I thought would bring freedom. It never did. Trapped inside the tiny space I had no idea what I was supposed to be or who I was supposed to please. I shut others out and basically shut myself down. It was miserable, yet familiar, comfortable, yet lonely. I was saddened that life was not more than this. I did not want to live this way any longer, so I cried out to God--who had been with me all along. He knew my pain and insecurities, my anger and fear. Bigger than any wall of self-protection I built, God would bring down these walls if I let him. My crying out was the first step.

We think the familiar and the known are somehow the safest and surest places, and this sounds logical. But it is not true. I developed thought patterns that became familiar and true to me, but ultimately they were lies that kept me hiding from life and the living. Somehow I thought that God was there, but he had failed me by not protecting me or my family members from harm.

When I cried out to God, he drew me close. While giving me an undeniable thirst for the Bible, the Lord taught me how to know him, pray, and accept him at his Word, concepts that were new to me. Each lie I believed were thought patterns and actions that crippled me were a part of the support of the huge wall I built, and I had to face each one. God began taking pieces of the wall down just far enough for me to see his hand and just small enough for me to handle. I have seen how intimately he chose the timing with his gentle compassion throughout this difficult, yet soul-freeing process in my life. It became a habit after a while to take each thought through the paradigm of his Truth. God drew me to him, heard my heart’s cry, and then grew belief in me. In the wall’s place was the truth and armor of the Almighty.

God has “set my feet in a spacious place” (Ps. 31:8). He has given me courage to live without walls around my heart. The little girl who refrained from living because it was too painful has found comfort in the Savior’s arms. As a now grown woman, I’m compelled to tell the Lord’s story in my life, for he is like no other.

What is the writing on your wall? Whatever keeps you from living in freedom are strongholds that only God can bring down. He is our strong tower, our deliverer, our fortress, and a very present savior. Let him have your deepest hurting places; he will fill them with his truth and love. “Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free”(John 8:32).

Remember, we are children of the King. If we are brokenhearted, he can bind us up. If we are in the dark, he can make us see. If we are imprisoned and in chains, he can set us free. The prophet Isaiah knew this when he wrote, “The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn” (Isa. 61:1-2). I know God can bind us up, make us see, and set us free. I know because he did it for me, a little girl crouching in a dark and cluttered hallway closet.