the deliverance

fathere-forgiveI don’t know how He did it.

How he kept his sinless mouth shut against the insults and accusations taking blow after blow knowing….
knowing each one of His accusers…. intimately.

How he allowed them to strip him naked never once comprehending how stripped and naked He’d already become for the sake….of this.

How, looking down upon the spectacle of His own death and asking only that they be forgiven of their ignorance, even as they mocked Him all the more.

How, pierced and cosmically positioned on a cross-shaped plane… bridging the gap between heaven and hell with every ounce of sin-saturated gravity pressing down upon His shoulders…somehow, even in death…He remained sinless and upright.

He didn’t cave.

I don’t know how He did it.
In that moment, I might have told them all to just “Go to hell”.

I can barely stand up under the weight of my sin full today….now rubble piled under the weight of many broken yesterdays. Pushed down in my dirt, sucker punched by the same old accusing enemy taunting like a playground bully just daring me to rise, call on and claim my “Deliverance”.

Even knowing the promises… that place they only add insult to injury and feel foreign to the Truth I claim to know. Even though I know, it’s not the truth. Whether I FEEL it or not, I know what’s real

and what God reveals, He intends to heal.

But it hurts all the same and broken-hearted, I reel and spin from the pain, almost yield to the lie and confusion … the aftershocks against my world still quaking and not making any sense.

I don’t ask why… because I know it’s the wrong question.

I can only ask “How”?
Because, on most days,  I really don’t know.

Steeling myself to silence my stricken soul, I WAIT. I wait for the rightness to surface because I know it’s there. The seeds were planted there just this morning in a heart song sung internally for my audience of One as I meditated upon the Word I’d gathered in the day before and would take again in huge gulps  before meeting time.

Knowing those seeds and promises never return void….even in the moments devoid of reason.

Even if it takes countless seasons,
fruit will be born.

It comes with the rush of wind  on a firewood run, staring, bleary-eyed into a clear, star spattered sky. Chest heaving out another choking cry for relief.

“Show me how. Just please. Show. me. how.”

Biting cold, heavy log rolling while seeking to find a manageable slice, I find the courage to ask for what I need and trust Him to show me how to want it too: “I need mercy. I need grace”.

There’s no silence or pause before the whisper comes:

“Then give it.”

And I know it’s the Truth. And I know it’s no use fighting it…not if I want to go where He leads in every other way.

It’s not romance; it’s reality..this “turn the other cheek” business is the breath of the Living Body which breathed it’s first just one moment past the empty tomb.

He showed the way then and He shows the way now.


Forgiveness fuels the unquenchable flame of resurrection and is kept and kindled through an obedient and willing heart held and stilled before our living God.

He’s alive..He’s alive and I’m forgiven–heaven’s gates are open wide….

Walking it.Lorretta signature




5 thoughts on “the deliverance

  1. Stopping by from Imperfect Prose. What beautiful words you poured out here.

    “Forgiveness fuels the unquenchable flame of resurrection and is kept and kindled through an obedient and willing heart held and stilled before HIm.”

    I’ll be pondering this one for a while. Thank you for sharing.

    1. Yes Lauren…it’s something I’ve been struck with just recently when I come face to face with my own inability to stand up under the pressures of accusation and difficulties…and mine are NOTHING when compared to what Christ endured. It’s quite something.

Welcome to the discussion!
