PRISONER 

                      Submitted by:  Merilee Ottoson

Never be a prisoner of your past. It was just a lesson, not a life sentence.

There it was. A quote on the internet. I don’t know who it originated with, so I don’t know their story. What happened to cause them to feel as though they had become a prisoner of their past? A tragedy? Loss of love? Disappointments? A broken relationship? A stupid mistake? Perhaps it was something unimaginable……

I’ve decided that there are two things we can do with our “past”. We can either:

1.  Learn from it             OR

2.  We can allow it to control every decision in our future.

If we chose option #1, we can share what we have learned and hopefully help others not to make those same mistakes. If we chose option #2, we can be so overwhelmed by the “past” that we wallow in self-pity, become bitter and never move on. However, Jesus has a remedy for that choice. In John 8:32, He spoke these words. “Then you will know the Truth and the Truth will set you free.” We will become FREE as we know the Truth….Jesus. That is a promise……by KNOWING Him, the freedom will come.

We have the choice. This choice requires something from us. It is not “instant Happy Meal”. It is time spent getting to know Christ and His Word…realizing that He never meant for us to live in “option #2”. 

Are you there…………..has option #2 become your life story? Making you unhealthy…and unhappy? Someone once told me, “live in the living room of life”.  Good advice. Let the past go…….you can throw it in an old trunk in the attic of your life….lock that trunk and throw away the key. Visiting the old rotten stuff of our past does not benefit us.

“If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.” II Corinthians 5:17