Imprisoned by secrets saved by the Church

The strangest thing happens when you’re drowning. As the precious elements of life are cut off, interrupted by the very
thing needed to stay alive, reactions are carried out in the most unique ways. Typically, thrashing about seeking what is
usually given so freely and openly, your body begins to panic. The problem with blindly striking out through panic and
fear, is that you end up nourishing that which is holding you down. The result of your efforts? You end up giving away the
power you possess to free yourself by taking away the one thing that holds the key to your freedom; your brain power.
Wrestlers, grapplers and sparring professionals alike all train to master the ability to always “find the out”. No matter
how sticky a situation or how deep you’ve dug the hole, there is always an ‘out’. What might that out be, the guidance of
your church family and the love of God. So if you take nothing from this book other than a faith in that truth, then you’ve
gained a lot my friend. However, as you look a little a deeper and read a little further, there is an endless well of
knowledge and wisdom found within that ‘out’.
Drying off from that morbid drowning scenario, we’ll place our focus squarely on another power that can drown us.
Albeit a little more subtly, our secrets can drown us more thoroughly than any body of water can. Secrets beget lies and
lies beget guilt. Together, they form a strong pact to consume your life; your every action and every word. Hidden truths
can grow to form a prison around your very being without you even seeing a thing. Frameworks of deception grow
deeply rooted in your everyday actions and thinking pattern and soon you are but a prisoner. Caught up in a web of lies,
many are quick to blame the devil but when we were spinning the truth and weaving those threads of guilt, who was the
spider, really?
All of a sudden, yet not quite as “suddenly” as you might think, we find ourselves asking questions like
How could I have let it get this far?
Why is this all happening to me?
When will the back-to-back storms ever end?
You may have been there for the groundbreaking ceremony but your focus was facing the wrong direction. From the very
first step you take on the path of a secretive nature, you begin to lose clarity and even your freedom. Once guilt has its
hold on you, it chisels at your foundation; clearing the way for the forces that will eventually drown you. What you really
want to gain freedom from is from lying, from deceit and especially from those restrictive binds of guilt.
Going back to our drowning scenario, as you’re striking out blindly, a physical inane rationality will take the lead and your
body will scramble to fix the problem. Finding a solution to your immediate problem becomes the only focus and in turn,
all other focus is affected. Sound familiar? Losing focus on what is really important like priorities or morals? Whether
your focus is interrupted or completely dissolved, you’ve taken your eye off of some form of higher purpose.

Gaining Visual Agility
When realization sinks in of just how out of control you’ve become, whether on a subconscious level or not, the
hazardous ‘shutdown’ begins. Call it failure or call it giving up; either way, life can no longer go on as is. This is what it’s
like to fall victim to your own secrets and lies. When you’re trapped by the untruths you’ve either set in motion or those
that were thrust upon you, you can see your freedom at the surface but something has its hold on you. What’s pulling
you down, to be honest it’s more like weighing you down, are the ripened vines of guilt.