For years I have felt as though I have been carrying the weight of the world on my shoulders. Actually, to be more honest I have felt enslaved to every one close to me. I began traveling to Africa in 2010. From the first time that I placed my feet on the continent there was a freedom that I have never felt. After my inaugural trip, I had to return back home to the same bondage. Longing to be free! One would ask, what is freedom? Freedom is supposed to be understood as either having the ability to act or change without constraint or to possess the power and resources to fulfill one’s purposes. I don’t know if one can truly define freedom until he/she has experienced freedom.
Captivity can be experienced not just in the natural, but spiritually. We have read about the multiple times that the Israelites went into captivity. Most of the time we are taken captive out of our own disobedience. We attach ourselves to the wrong people, places, or things.
Family can be the very root cause of our captivity. Generational trauma plays a major role. Generational trauma is exactly what it sounds like: trauma that isn’t just experienced by one person but extends from one general to the next. It can be silent, covert, and undefined, surfacing through nuances and inadvertently taught or implied throughout someone’s life from an early age onward. I found myself taking on generational burdens that held me back. For the last two years, I have been breaking away from much of these burdens in order to break away from depression, anxiety, and stress. The very thing that has taken the life of family members in the past.
In my young adult years, church contributed to the captivity that I would experience. Several churches appeared to be on assignment to hold me in captivity. The amount of mental abuse and manipulation I have experienced in my younger years really took some time to work through. It was not until my late thirties that I learned to turn my pain into fuel. Never to work evil against those that caused me so much trauma, but to push me into my greater. I learned to identify some of my weak spots that the enemy continued to used to enslave me. Rejection can be a silent killer if we allow it to be.
Rejection on all sides. At times it has been paralyzing. Can you imagine many leaders wanting to utilize you for their own personal benefits? Their own benefit placed me in some state of bondage. Fighting on every end to be free of legalism, manipulation, slander, rejection. Never allowing me to operate in my true calling. I often wondered why until I realized that no one wants truth to expose their secrets. Their assignment becomes silencing truth.
Over time, I have learned to identify imposters. Imposter friends are people that befriend an individual because they have one of many agendas. If they cannot use the individual for what they need, they will team up with others to discredit or worse.
Through it all I never gave up on my dream to be free. Free to be who I am called to be. Over the past year my eyes have become very open to the truth. I was hiding out in buildings seeking safety, all they while my safety was in Lord all the time.
“He that dewelleth in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in Him will I trust. Surely He shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler, and from the noisome pestilence.” (Ps 91:1-3 KJV)
I am being set free!!! Jeremiah 29:11 tells me so.
“For I know the plans I have for you, “declares the Lord,” plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”
The Lord knew when the Israelites were going to be set free from captivity. Just as He knew when they would walk free, He deemed this time for my freedom.
I want to leave you with this one last lesson that I heard Colin Kaepernick say, “Trust your power”.
You may not be everyone’s first choice, but trust your power. Trust your dream….stay focused. The more you are rejected, the more you begin to shine. Trust your discernment because you are more than the demands that people attempt to place on you. Trust the Holy Spirit inside of you. Love your authentic self.
Love, Peace, and Blessings