Hear and be comforted, beloved, how merciful is God. To the sinful woman He forgave her offenses; yea, He upheld her when she was afflicted. With clay He opened the eyes of the blind, so that the eyeballs beheld the light. To the palsied He granted healing, who arose and walked and carried his bed. And to us He has given the pearls; His holy Body and Blood. He brought His medicines secretly; and with them He heals openly. And He wandered round in the land of Judea, like a physician, bearing his medicines. Simon invited Him to the feast, to eat bread in his house. The sinful woman rejoiced when she heard that He sat and was feasting in Simon’s house; her thoughts gathered together like the sea, and like the billows her love surged. She beheld the Sea of Grace, how it had forced itself into one place; and she resolved to go and drown all her wickedness in its billows.

She bound her heart, because it had offended, with chains and tears of suffering; and she began weeping (with herself): What avails me this fornication? What avails this lewdness? I have defiled the innocent ones without shame; I have corrupted the orphan; and without fear I have robbed the merchants of merchandise, and my rapacity was not satisfied. I have been as a bow in war, and have slain the good and the bad. I have been as a storm on the sea, and have sunk the ships of many. Why did I not win me one man, who might have corrected my lewdness? For one man is of God, but many are of Satan.

These things she inwardly said; then began she to do outwardly. She washed and put away from her eyes the dye that blinded them that saw it. And tears gushed forth from her eyes over that deadly eyepaint. She drew off and cast from her hands the enticing bracelets of her youth. She put off and cast away from her body the tunic of fine linen of whoredom, and resolved to go and attire herself in the tunic the garment of reconciliation. She drew off and cast from her feet the adorned sandals of lewdness; and directed the steps of her going in the path of the heavenly Eagle. She took up her gold in her palm and held it up to the face of heaven, and began to cry secretly, to Him who hears openly: This, O Lord, that I have gained from iniquity, with it will I purchase to myself redemption. This which was gathered from orphans, with it will I win the Lord of orphans.

These things she said secretly; then began to do openly. She took up the gold in her palm, and carried the alabaster box in her hands. Then hastily went she forth in sadness to the perfumer. The perfumer saw her and wondered, and fell into questioning with her; and thus he began to say to the harlot in the first words he spoke: Was it not enough for you, harlot, that you have corrupted all our town? What means this fashion that you show today to your lovers— that you have put off your wantonness and hast clothed yourself in modesty? Heretofore, when you came to me, your aspect was different from today’s. You were clothed in goodly raiment, and brought little gold; and asked for precious ointment, to make your lewdness pleasant. But lo! Today your vesture is mean, and you have brought much gold. Your change I understand not; wherefore is this fashion of yours? Either clothe you in raiment according to your ability, or buy ointment according to your clothing. For this ointment becomes not or is suited to this attire. Can it be that a merchant has met you, and brings great wealth; and you have seen that he loves it not, the fashion of your lewdness? So you have put off your lewdness and hast clothed yourself in meekness, that by various fashions you may capture much wealth. But if he loves this fashion because he is a chaste man in truth, then woe to him! Into what has he fallen? Into a gulf that has swallowed up his merchandise. But I give you advice, as a man that desires your welfare, that you send away your many lovers who have helped you nought from your youth, and henceforth seek out one husband who may correct your lewdness.

These things spoke the perfumer, in wisdom, to the harlot. The sinful woman answered and said to him, to the perfumer after his discourse, Hinder me not, O man, and stop me not by your questioning. I have asked of you ointment, not freely, but I will pay you its value not grudgingly. Take you the gold, as much as you demand, and give me the precious ointment; take you that which endures not and give me that which endures; and I will go to Him who endures, and will buy that which endures. And as to that you said, about a merchant; a Man has met me today Who bears riches in abundance. He has robbed me and I have robbed Him; He has robbed me of my transgressions and sins, and I have robbed Him of His wealth. And as to that you said of a husband; I have won me a Husband in heaven, Whose dominion stands for ever, and His kingdom shall not be dissolved. She took up the ointment and went forth.

In haste went she forth; as Satan saw her and was enraged; and was greatly grieved in his mind. At one time he rejoiced, and again at another he was grieved. That she carried the perfumed oil, he rejoiced in his inward mind; but that she was clad in mean raiment— at this doing of hers he was afraid. He clave then to her and followed her, as a robber follows a merchant. He listened to the murmurs of her lips, to hear the voice of her words. He closely watched her eyeballs (to mark) whither the glance of her eyes was directed; and as he went he moved by her feet (to mark) whither her goings were directed. Very full of craft is Satan, from our words to learn our aim. Therefore our Lord has taught us not to raise our voice when we pray, that the Devil may not hear our words and draw near and become our adversary. So then, when Satan saw that he could not change her mind, he clothed himself in the fashion of a man, and drew to himself a crowd of youths, like her lovers of former times; and then began he thus to address her: By your life, O woman, tell me whither are your footsteps directed? What means this haste? For you hastes more than other days. What means this your meekness, for your soul is meek like a handmaid’s? Instead of garments of fine linen, lo! You are clothed in sordid weeds; instead of bracelets of gold and silver, there are not even rings on your fingers; instead of goodly sandals for your feet, not even worn shoes are on your feet. Disclose to me all your doing, for I understand not your change. Is it that some one of your lovers has died, and you go to bury him? We will go with you to the funeral, and with you will (take part with you) in sorrow.

The sinful woman answered and said to him, (even) to Satan, after his speech: Well have you said that I go to inter the dead, one that has died to me. The sin of my thoughts has died, and I go to bury it. Satan answered and said to her, (even) to the sinful woman after her words: Go to, O woman, I tell you that I am the first of your lovers. I am not such as you, and I place my hands upon you. I will give you again more gold than before.

The sinful woman answered and said to him, even to Satan after his discourse: I am wearied of you, O man, and you are no more my lover. I have won me a husband in heaven, Who is God, that is over all, and His dominion stands for ever, and His kingdom shall not be dissolved. For lo! In your presence I say; I say it again and I lie not. I was a handmaid to Satan from my childhood unto this day. I was a bridge, and he trode upon me, and I destroyed thousands of men. The eyepaint blinded my eyes, and (I was) blind among many whom I blinded. I became sightless and knew not that there is One Who gives light to the sightless. Lo! I go to get light for my eyes, and by that light to give light to many. I was fast bound, and knew not that there is One Who overthrows idols. Lo! I go to have my idols destroyed, and so to destroy the follies of many. I was wounded and knew not that there is One Who binds up wounds; and lo! I go to have my wounds bound. These things the harlot spoke to Satan in her wisdom; and he groaned and was grieved and wept; and he cried aloud and thus he spoke:— I am conquered by you, O woman, and what I shall do I know not.

As soon as Satan perceived that he could not change her mind, he began to weep for himself and thus it was that he spoke: Henceforth is my boasting perished, and the pride of all my days. How shall I lay for her a snare, for her who is ascending on high? How shall I shoot arrows at her, (even) at her whose wall is unshaken? Therefore I go into Jesus’ presence; lo! she is about to enter His presence; and I shall say to Him thus: This woman is an harlot. Perchance He may reject and not receive her. And I shall say to Him thus: This woman who comes into Your presence is a woman that is an harlot. She has led captive men by her whoredom; she is polluted from her youth. But You, O Lord, are righteous; all men throng to see You. And if mankind see You that You have speech with the harlot, they all will flee from Your presence, and no man will salute You.

These things Satan spoke within himself, nor was he moved. Then he changed the course of his thought, and thus it was that he spoke. How shall I enter into Jesus’ presence, for to Him the secret things are manifest? He knows me, who I am, that no good office is my purpose. If haply He rebuke me I am undone, and all my wiles will be wasted. I will go to the house of Simon, for secret things are not manifest to him. And into his heart I will put it; perchance on that hook he may be caught. And thus will I say unto him: By your life, O Simon, tell me; this man that sojourns in your house is he a man that is righteous, or a friend of the doers of wickedness? I am a wealthy man, and a man that has possessions, and I wish like you to invite him that he may come in and bless my possessions.

Simon answered and thus he said to the Evil One after his words: From the day that (first) I saw Him I have seen no lewdness in Him, but rather quietness and peace, humility and seemliness. The sick He heals without reward, the diseased He freely cures. He approaches and stands by the grave, and calls, and the dead arise. Jairus called Him to raise his daughter to life, trusting that He could raise her to life. And as He went with him in the way, He gave healing to the woman diseased, who laid hold of the hem of His garment and stole healing from Him, and her pain which was hard and bitter at once departed from her. He went forth to the desert and saw the hungry, how they were fainting with famine. He made them sit down on the grass, and fed them in His mercy. In the ship He slept as He willed, and the sea swelled against the disciples. He arose and rebuked the billows, and there was a great calm. The widow, the desolate one who was following her only son, on the way to the grave He consoled her. He gave him to her and gladdened her heart. To one man who was dumb and blind, by His voice He brought healing. The lepers He cleansed by His word; to the limbs of the palsied He restored strength. For the blind man, afflicted and weary, He opened his eyes and he saw the light. And for two others who besought Him, at once He opened their eyes. As for me, thus have I heard the fame of the man from afar; and I called Him to bless my possessions, and to bless all my flocks and herds.

Satan answered and said to him, to Simon after his words: Praise not a man at his beginning, until you learn his end; hitherto this man is sober and his soul takes not pleasure in wine. If he shall go forth from your house, and holds not converse with an harlot, then he is a righteous man and no friend of them that do wickedness. Such things did Satan speak in his craftiness to Simon. Then he approached and stood afar off, to see what should come to pass.

The sinful woman full of transgressions stood clinging by the door. She clasped her arms in prayer, and thus she spoke beseeching:— Blessed Son Who hast descended to earth for the sake of man’s redemption, close not Your door in my face; for You have called me and lo! I come. I know that You have not rejected me; open for me the door of Your mercy, that I may come in, O my Lord, and find refuge in You, from the Evil One and his hosts! I was a sparrow, and the hawk pursued me, and I have fled and taken refuge in Your nest. I was a heifer, and the yoke galled me, and I will turn back my wanderings to You. Lay upon me the shoulder of Your yoke that I may take it on me, and work with Your oxen. Thus did the harlot speak at the door with much weeping. The master of the house looked and saw her, and the colour of his visage was changed; and he began thus to address her, (even) the harlot, in the opening of his words:— Depart hence, O harlot, for this man who abides in our house is a man that is righteous, and they that are of his companions are blameless. Is it not enough for you, harlot, that you have corrupted the whole town? You have corrupted the chaste without shame; you have robbed the orphans, and have not blushed, and have plundered the merchants’ wares, and your countenance is not abashed. From him your heart [and soul] labour [to take]. But from him your net takes no spoil. For this man is righteous indeed, and they of his company are blameless.

The sinful woman answered and said to him, even to Simon when he had ceased: You surely are the guardian of the door, O you that know things that are secret! I will propose the matter in the feast, and you shall be free from blame. And if there be any that wills me to come in, he will bid me and I will come in. Simon ran and closed the door, and approached and stood afar off. And he tarried a long time and proposed not the matter in the feast. But He, Who knows what is secret, beckoned to Simon and said to him:— Come hither, Simon, I bid you; does any one stand at the door? Whosoever he be, open to him that he may come in; let him receive what he needs, and go. If he be hungry and hunger for bread, lo! In your house is the table of life; and if he be thirsty, and thirst for water, lo! The blessed fountain is in your dwelling. And if he be sick and ask for healing, lo! The great Physician is in your house. Allow sinners to look upon Me, for their sakes have I abased Myself. I will not ascend to heaven, to the dwelling whence I came down, until I bear back the sheep that has wandered from its Father’s house, and lift it up on My shoulders and bear it aloft to heaven. Simon answered and thus he said to Jesus, when He had done speaking:— My Lord, this woman that stands in the doorway is a harlot: she is lewd and not free-born, polluted from her childhood. And You, my Lord, are a righteous man, and all are eager to see You; and if men see You having speech with the harlot, all men will flee from beside You, and no man will salute You. Jesus answered, and thus He said to Simon when he was done speaking:— Whosoever it be, open for him to come in, and you shall be free from blame; and though his offenses be many, without rebuke I bid you [receive him].

Simon approached and opened the door, and began thus to speak:— Come, enter, fulfil that you will, to him who is even as you. The sinful woman, full of transgressions, passed forward and stood by His feet, and clasped her arms in prayer, and with these words she spoke:— My eyes have become watercourses that cease not from [watering] the fields, and today they wash the feet of Him Who follows after sinners. This hair, abundant in locks from my childhood till this day, let it not grieve You that it should wipe this holy body. The mouth that has kissed the lewd, forbid it not to kiss the body that remits transgressions and sins. These things the harlot spoke to Jesus, with much weeping. And Simon stood afar off to see what He would do to her. But He Who knows the things that are secret, beckoned to Simon and said to him:— Lo! I will tell you, O Simon, what your meditation is, concerning the harlot. Within your mind you imagine and within your soul you said, ‘I have called this man righteous, but lo! The harlot kisses Him. I have called Him to bless my possessions, and lo! The harlot embraces Him.’ O Simon, there were two debtors, whose creditor was one only; one owed him five-hundred [pence], and the other owed fifty. And when the creditor saw that neither of these two had anything, the creditor pardoned and forgave them both their debt. Which of them ought to render the greater thanks? He who was forgiven five hundred, or he who was forgiven fifty? Simon answered, and thus he said to Jesus, when He had done speaking:— He who was forgiven five hundred ought to render the greater thanks. Jesus answered and thus He said: You are he that owes five hundred, and this woman owes fifty. Lo! I came into your house, O Simon; and water for My feet you brought not; and this woman, of whom you said that she was an harlot, one from her childhood defiled, has washed My feet with her tears, and with her hair she has wiped them. Ought I to send her away, O Simon, without receiving forgiveness? Verily, verily, I say unto you, I will write of her in the Gospel. Go, O woman, your sins are forgiven you and all your transgression is covered; henceforth and to the end of the world.

May our Lord account us worthy of hearing this word of His:— Come, enter, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom made ready for all who shall do My will, and observe all My commandments. To Him be glory; on us be mercy; at all times. Amen! Amen!

Source of original posting

Its a picture of captivity. Why don’t I guard my soul as vehemently as I guard my body? Perhaps its because I just don’t know how valuable my soul is.

When Scriptures speak of Jonathan’s love for David the prophet, it says, “the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul” (1 Samuel 18:1).

So what does it really mean to love your own soul?

“Know O beautiful soul that you are the image of God, know that you are the glory of God, know then, O man, your greatness and be vigilant.” -St Ambrose of Milan

Sometimes we are blinded from this very greatness that St. Ambrose speaks of. We feel so human, in every broken kind of way. Our memory fades from the calling to which we received. We have unlearnt that we are made for greatness, by Greatness. Our minds haven’t quite descended into the depths of our hearts to know these truths.

“The more we get what we now call ‘ourselves’ out of the way and let Him take us over, the more truly ourselves we become.” -C.S Lewis

If only we knew of the way God looks at you and me. It’s in the same way He looked at a shepherd boy—David—and saw in him a king. Each of us is in the process of becoming. Becoming beauty out of the ashes. Living in the dirt of our own sin, but destined to be butterflies. Perhaps living the resurrection just means being yourself, in the fullest way. Dark but lovely. No matter how dark we are, “God’s gifts and His call are irrevocable” (Romans 11:29). Not even an inch of darkness can out shadow the shine of your lovely.

“Like Michelangelo who looked at a rough, shapeless stone one day and saw a statue of David in it, Jesus was constantly looking at people in terms of what they can become. We may be defeated, degraded, soiled, enslaved by our pas­sions, yet through Christ we can be redeemed.”  -Anthony Coniaris

It’s in this knowing that we learn to guard our souls zealously. We learn to build the walls of Jerusalem because we know that deep inside there is treasure.

So, brush off the dirt and be ready to receive the promise of the Father.

“For you have need of endurance, so that after you have done the will of God, you may receive the promise.” Hebrews 10:36

The promise of the Father, the Holy Spirit, will bring to your remembrance all things. Remembrance of who you really are. We were made for worship, and every moment in our lives we are bowing down to something, so if in those moments we don’t see God, we are worshipping an idol. So allow Him to bring us prostrate before the throne of grace – let Him point us back home, back to where we belong.

“He is the source of holiness an intellectual light for every rational power’s discovery of truth, supplying clarity, so to say through himself. He is inaccessible in nature but approachable in goodness. He fills all things with power but only those who are worthy participate in him. He is not participated in all at once but shares his energy in ‘proportion to faith”. He is simple in substance but manifold in powers. He is present as a whole to each and wholly present everywhere. He is proportioned out impassibly and participated in as a whole. He is like a sunbeam whose grace is present to one who enjoys him as if he was present to such a one alone.” -On the Holy Spirit , St Basil the Great.

(Picture courtesy of Chartchai Yodsin)

If you ask me about the most important things in religion, I will answer that the first, second and third things are humility.
-St. Augustine

We’re trying to move up fast
Can’t see the contrast
Of how the King came down
-Jimmy Needham

I used to think God’s gifts were on shelves one above the other and the taller you grew in Christian character the easier you could reach them. I find now that His gifts are on shelves one below the other, it is not a question of growing taller but stooping lower.
-Ann Voskamp

We all face the temptation to do spectacular things. Jesus was even temped to turn stones into bread and to throw Himself off of a temple. It is easy to fall in love with a great thing.

Everyone wants to change the world but no one wants to do the dishes. We must never fall in love with a vision or a revolution without loving our brother. It’s easy to fight with your brother about how best to serve the kingdom while forgetting that he is a part of that same kingdom.

Let us fight the temptation to be anything but small and hidden in Him. And let’s not forget that God speaks through the people with seemingly very little value: the donkey, the prostitute, the adulterer, the murderer.

We can do no great things
Only small things with great love
-Mother Teresa

Pride lies as a dormant seed in the heart that will grow into the weeds and thorns that choke every spiritual fruit. It is the silent killer. Humility is the root of all virtues and without it no other virtue can really exist.

We are the real lepers in the story, our wounds festering below the surface.

Just like every disease, pride has symptoms:

Finding faults

Pride tends to be easily critical of others. Someone who is proud will have little patience with someone they see in sin. They will disregard the truth that we often see the faults of others most clearly when they reside deeply in our very own hearts. Humility sees people as Jesus does and meets people with patience and love.

Faking

Someone who is proud is far more concerned with how they are perceived than the state of their heart. They may endeavour to work on the sins that are most evident to people but avoid tackling what is really within. This is why Jesus called these types of people white washed tombs.

Judge yourself not on your actions or words but your thoughts and feelings
-Abouna David Lamaey

Do not get a big head if you have served well, because you have only done what you are required to do.
-St. Ambrose

Easily offended

True humility feels no need to defend self.

“Woe to you when everyone speaks well of you, for that is how their ancestors treated the false prophets” Luke 6:26

Attention seeking

This might not be someone who is outwardly boasting but someone who just can’t say no because they love to be needed. This also ties in with the need to be praised by others. Someone who seeks attention can feel offended or not appreciated when not given credit for something they have done.

Neglecting others

Those who are humble show no partiality regardless of the world’s love to praise those with wealth and power.

Hard for you to admit a mistake

Do you think you are usually right and others are usually wrong?

Do you find it hard to compromise?  Is it your way or no way?

It can be very difficult to deal with the idea of submission in this respect.

Comparing

Comparing yourself with others and ranking yourself accordingly

Humility, my child, is always to feel yourself sinful and worse than all other people, an elder explained. This is great and difficult feat. But you can accomplish it by applying yourself with unceasing labor
-A Desert Father

True comparison can only be made between yourself and the Word of God.

Feeling overly guilty for your sins

“How could I commit such a sin”

You think this isn’t about you

Thinking about someone else this whole time?…

Good news. The first step is realization; we can use that realization to fight pride. We can turn to the glorious Gospel in which we stand and make much of God, His forgiveness, grace, and desire to make us as He is! I can confess my inability to overcome this treacherous heart and can rely on His strength to deliver me from even the most extreme arrogance. I can stand at the top of my tree like Zechariah, short in stature but full of pride, and answer as Jesus calls me down to dine with Him.

To know ourselves is the beginning of wisdom. It is the beginning of realizing that we are the dust that we were created from and it is only His very breath that gives us life… and He adds to us grace and virtue!

The irony of the kingdom is that the more a heart is broken, the more it is healed and it is only the humbled bones that can truly rejoice

A man filled with pride does not know himself. If he really knew himself and his own stupidity, he would not be puffed up with pride.
-St. Mark the Hermit

Imitate the donkey in his love for his master
-St. John Chrysostom

The pride of your heart has deceived you, you who live in the clefts of the rocks and make your home on the heights, you who say to yourself, ‘Who can bring me down to the ground?
Obadiah 1:3

A short video for you…

This was written by a dear friend.

Tell me your secret: Pornography, I’m still learning to love.

The lonesome curse of the introverted recluse, the unbearable shaming weight of the extroverted socialite: pornography, at its core, is our broken generation’s poor excuse for human love.

Everything around us is different. We weren’t supposed to look like this. In as much as technology has advanced mankind, it has also receded our humanity to an impersonal, self-loathing collective of isolated individualism. We weren’t supposed to look like this. Love wasn’t supposed to look like this. God’s eyes see an unfulfilled generation of victims. Yet, as these victims, we have more reason than ever to hope, to depend on a power far beyond our capacity to fight. As victims of our own circumstance, we have the greatest capacity of all – to make His power manifest through every fragile weakness that composes our form – a fragmented form of a most precious, most lovable and most loved humanity. Being independently broken down as isolated men through our own weaknesses, we are united together by our collective pain for each other, for God we rise and rise, and rise yet again. I have hope. I’m still learning to love.

At the start of it all

There are times when it becomes clear to me that a deeper secret and a darker need, deeper and darker than my shackling habits, is in fact the strongest link in the chains holding me down. It is at the start of it all. Shunning aside every burning pre-pubescent lust, every teenage egoistic urge for admiration, every narrow-minded adult’s desire to express masculinity, there he sits, the small lonely child in my heart, repeatedly demoralized by every manifestation of the pain of his rejection. At times I cannot look into the mirror. I see his green eyes, desperate and teary, insecurely staring into mine. Swiftly, I look away. It isn’t the shame of his glare that I hide from, it’s the fear. Fear that every repressed negative belief about myself is in fact true. Fear that the small, lonesome child inside of me is unloved and well and truly unlovable. Ultimately rejected even by the fantasies that barely uphold themselves, the fragments of lies amount to a firm belief. At times, I avoid even sitting in silence, in prayerful meditation, because all I can hear is the child’s desperate voice, begging to be loved.

He hasn’t met my expectations as the presentable young man he should have become by now, the one he dresses like and acts to be. He’s simple, a feeble soul, with a thorough and shaken vulnerability like no other; broken, seemingly like no other. Broken, so very, very broken. He was only a child when he first saw that one explicit image, yet before he could resolve the anxiety of the trauma, he began to crave it more. It became his most intimate, valued treasure. He owned it. It became my porn. Over the years, at times, through the confusion and the turmoil, a balanced vision seeps through, and the single prayer of the child that lies at the core of my struggles repeats itself – the prayer I subconsciously prayed before I even knew what sex was, before I was even conceived. “Dearest God, please give me a kind, gentle hand to hold, that is all I ever desire.” As a growing man, nothing changed much since the start of it all. Rummaging through the endless pictures and clips, the child within me fantasises about that pure loving hand that now looks so vulgar and warped, yet as a man starving for love, not knowing how to love, I both reluctantly and desperately cling to.

The despair that I often find myself in does not stem from a mere frustration at my repeated failures and my feeble incapacity for self-restraint, because I’m already mature enough to be cognizant of my own shortcomings, of the confines of my strengths. I already know that as a human I cannot be defined as just a creation, or even as an end-product of evolutionary chance, but that I am defined as a true understanding of my desires, emotions and ambitions, restricted equally by both reality and self-control. But that’s not it, though. There’s more and I know it. Deep down, I know that there’s a difference. This shakes me at the core of my existence. Not only do I find my deepest and strongest intrinsic drive for expressing human affection, passion and love unexpressed, I find it compulsively expressed towards a lie. I knowingly break off fragments of my valuable heart and hand it over to a phantom, only to see it fall through the formless illusion and hit the ground, dying and unfixable. I rock to and fro between the two extremes of conviction – passionately embracing the pseudo-love because it numbs the emptiness, then retracting back to the true emptiness, woefully regretting my indulgence that left me emptier than before. Past my bold masculinity and the insensitive jesting, past the hoarse-voiced laughter and the aggressive ambition, there’s a fragility that goes untouched for deathly fear of being destroyed. There’s an overprotected intimacy, spoilt rotten by the ever-fulfilled delusional need to be silent, to be cocooned in a mind that is far too afraid to be revealed.

And the cycles begin, the painful patterns that I draw in my mind. Like rivers flowing through the valleys collapsing into the ocean to their demise, the variety of reasons pave their way through the valleys of my thoughts eventually gravitating to the single pool of demise – a pornographic ocean. A vast, vast solution to every rejection, every worry, every anger, every hunger and every isolation of experience. Too thirsty to even believe in freshwater reserves – in a holy, fulfilling and fulfilled sexuality – I’m allured by the ocean that provides its illusive worth of an unquenching mass of water, it leaves me even drier and thirstier that before. And I hate it, I hate myself for allowing it to make me what it made me.

I hear the people sing, ‘no man is an island’, yet in maturing I became the dictator of the island of my mind, I drove out the interpersonal society that began to flourish inside of me and I pushed away the edifying exterior influences that should have thrived within. Soon, I became that very island that no man can survive as. I became a man on my own terms, I became a man on my own, nothing more than an aged, shielded iteration of that terrified child inside. The child that is far too terrified to risk the pain of rejection that comes in its infinite forms and retracted deep inside your heart since the start of it all. “The evil I do not want to do – this I keep on doing” (Rom 7:19). If it doesn’t even make sense to myself, how can I expect it to make sense to anyone else if I was to ever tell them? So I hide it. What kind of a Christian, deacon, fiancé, husband, lover and father can look like I do? So I hide it from my family, from my friends, from my relationships, but I cannot hide it from God, so I hide myself from God entirely…

Recycling the cycles of guilt and pain

The first stage of dealing with my guilt, is embracing my problem for what it truly is. For that reason, I have referred to pornography as my porn. It is mine. As I child I owned it as my dark, vile treasure, now I own it as the very key to my liberation. My porn is both the chains holding me down, and the means through which my chains will be broken through the loving grace of God. He says that the truth will set me free. My ownership is that truth. His unfailing acceptance is that truth. My liberation from guilt is that truth. My honesty is that truth that will set me free. Henri Nouwen says,

“Self-realization…is the growing ability to allow the dark side of our personality to enter into our awareness and thus prevent a one sided life in which only that which is presentable to the outside world is considered as a real part of ourselves. To come to an inner unity, totality and wholeness, every part of our self should be accepted and integrated. Christ represents the light in us. But Christ was crucified between two murderers and we cannot deny them, and certainly not the murderers who live in us.”

As with most painful experiences in our lives, once we learn to look past the suffering, an opportunity for compassion arises. God leverages our suffering, even that which is self-inflicted, to open up our hearts to a greater absolute truth – that humanity shares an overpowering need to be loved. I have always wondered why we need to be loved, why we need to give love and to make it. God’s image, our very selves, reflect His same passion in giving and receiving back from us, that which is given to us of Himself. That is God within us. That is God in others, which is in so much need for expression. The hours of suffering that follow the hours spent with my porn are incredibly dark, but they are a dark window opening my heart to the sleepless night of pain of those around me. I hear the words of the Psalmist, “Many a time have they afflicted me from my youth…The ploughers ploughed on my back; they made their furrows long” (Ps 129:2-3). Oh, how they’ve made their furrows in me so very, very long.

In the same way that porn is the lustful sugar-coating to my deep need for love, those around me that seek to fulfil their own need for intimacy and love colour their own hunger in a rainbow of expression. As my brother who I love, I invite you to take that silent heaviness as a moment of heartfelt, powerful prayer lifted up out of your own pain for the widespread suffering of the world. Lift up a prayer. For the girl you once loved, who out of a desperate, frantic need for validation, preferred to be lusted over and fantasised about than to subdue to the terrifying risk of her commitment to you. For your friend who it pains you to see dressing and acting provocatively to entice men through her seemingly immoral desire for sex, who deep beneath her wanting, lustrous eyes, an aching sadness and a begging for acceptance is buried. For your closest friend, who amidst the heavy bitterness and the disheartening complications of his soul, couldn’t find it in himself to even smile at your success. For your aggressive friend, who rages and furiously seeks out his own, yet only rages for and furiously seeks out a deeper conviction that he is worth loving. For your father who couldn’t love you, who, because of his misunderstanding of your adolescent pseudo-resentment towards him, lost the capacity to love himself and lost faith in the very value of his own fatherhood. For your bitter and discontented grandfather, who through the years, lost little-by-little the very love he spent his life building his heart upon. Feel their pain and forgive, “for they do not know what they do” (‭Luke‬ ‭23‬:‭34‬). They do not know how much hurt their pain has caused. Feel their pain my brother, that is the same pain that you hide behind your smile. Only in our darkest hours, can we see that we’re so very broken too and our hearts become ever kinder by the searing pain. ‘When we are crushed like grapes, we cannot think of the wine we will become,’ Henri Nouwen.

Pray for the deceptively seductive rainbow of pain arching over the world, for you are no more than a fragment of the brokenness of this earth and our porn is the explicit visual realisation of that same reality.

This is the glorious blessing that your porn can bring once you embrace it as a warped definition of your humanity, as your deep and great capacity for love, as misdirected as it may be. It hurts only because you are so loving, so affectionate, and so caring – it hurts because it makes you see how truly isolated and closed off you are.‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬

It’s time to share. But first, learn to forgive yourself. It isn’t your fault that your heart became so enslaved in these sexual perversions. Your fluctuating cravings and indulgences don’t change the truth about yourself. You’re still that pure child your mother raised you to be, the one who she taught absolute and unconditional respect for women. You’re still the protective brother who loves and respects every inch of his sister’s femininity and virtue. You are not your struggle. You are loved by God so incredibly deeply, not on the condition of an unfaltering purity, but by nature of your existence and for your persistent desire to return to Him, your Father, clothed in rags, smelling of swine, yet still the most valued, most precious, most beloved little child. ‘God said “Love Your Enemy,” and I obeyed Him and loved myself’ (Khalil Gibran). He says, “Yet I have set My King On My holy hill of Zion” (‭Ps‬ ‭2‬:‭6‬). On Christ you are established, “a city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden” (‭Mat‬ ‭5‬:‭14). Your light cannot be hidden. Though the hilltop lamp may flicker and be put out by the wind, “a smoking flax He will not quench” (‭Mat‬ ‭12‬:‭20‬). There is still hope in you. There is always hope in you. Forgive yourself and learn to love yourself as deeply as you are loved. You deserve far more than the self-loathing that only you impose on yourself. Listen to his voice “for the Father Himself loves you” (‭John‬ ‭16‬:‭27)‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬.

“But if you are a poor creature…- straddled, by no choice of your own, by some loathsome sexual perversion – nagged day in and day out by an inferiority complex…do not despair. He knows about it. You are one of the poor whom He blessed. He knows what a wretched machine you are trying to drive. Keep on. Do what you can. One day (perhaps in another world, but perhaps far sooner than that) He will fling it on the scrap heap and give you a new one.”
C. S. Lewis

Sharing is caring

“But You, O LORD, are a shield for me, My glory and the One who lifts up my head” (‭Psalms‬ ‭3‬:‭3‬). My glory is in God’s acceptance and protection, not in my own capacity to keep myself pure. There is no shame, “There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear” (‭I John‬ ‭4‬:‭18‬). On your journey learning to love a wholesome, perfect love, begin by letting go of your fears to let that love inside and to allow it to flourish through its ever-transparent and honest vulnerability. “It’s not easy. Fear will tell us all the many reasons not to share, all the reasons why we should hide. It is a scary thing to take your darkness and expose it, because what if no one accepts our dark? I’ve learned not to be afraid, not to be afraid firstly of my own dark, and not to be afraid of other people’s. Never forget the truth that you are more. You are more than your worst mistake. You are more than your shame. These words of your weakness don’t define you.” (Makrina)

By learning to be vulnerable, I’m learning to love. I’m learning to hand over to my fellow man, the depths of my fear and the dark reason for my inability to truly love.

Usually, it isn’t our own flaws that we present to others that repel them away, it’s the flaws that we desperately try to hide from them which creep out during our interactions with them that repulse them. It’s the masks we put on that we try to deceive them with that drive them further away from us. Unravelling the truth of our own weakness is never as abhorrent as unravelling the lie that hid it away.

Let him out

Once I came to the conclusion that my porn is my own, that it does not define me, that it’s a desperate expression to fill the love-less, isolated void in my heart and that sharing is the key to filling my void, and ultimately, my freedom, then came the time for inner resolution.

Call him out. Call out the terrified green-eyed child inside your heart and let him heal in Sun of Righteousness. Call him out and comfort him. With a gentle, newly-found understanding teach him little-by-little that love is not in the shadows, it is not his shameful, dirty secret, it is not a wasted fantasy, but a loud and sacrificial truth. Teach him to speak of his own pain and struggle, teach him that his vulnerability empowers his loved ones to feel liberated in their own struggles, to allow them to feel the pain that we all share as a broken humanity without fear of shame. When he’s hurting, teach him to hear His Father’s words,

“I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore with lovingkindness I have drawn you” (Jer 31:3). Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool (Isa 1:18). I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance (Luke 5:32). I have come for you, my broken, hurting child. I have come so that you do not have to live as an island – isolated, ever-retracting and self-loathing.”

And the healing child inside you can reply,

“I am dark, but lovely (Songs 1:5). Why should I be as one who veils herself? (Songs 1:7) The king has brought me into his chambers (Songs 1:4). I’m healing by my shedding. I’m becoming vulnerable to become intimate. For God, I will rise, and rise, and rise yet again. Pornography, my chains and the key to unleashing my chains, I’m still learning to love.”

As for me, you may ask who I am. I am your dark past and your hopeful future. I am your father and you mother, who did not know how to teach you to love when you recoiled to the safety of your porn. I am your friend who you waited long for to hear my secret so that you can tell me yours, and that we can both grow in love and be free from our pain. I am your brother who was too anxious to give to you the gift of your own liberation. I am your future self – the loving husband who can be as honest about his weakness as he is about his strengths. I am your future self – the vulnerable and caring father telling his children about his struggles with porn, helping them learn themselves to love, to open up and to share their pain. In our shared pain, I am an embodiment of your hope.

I am a fragmented form of a most precious, most lovable and most loved humanity.

Pornography, I’m still learning to love.

I can do all things through him who strengthens me..
Philippians 4:13

For the majority of my life I have done whatever I wanted to do. I was always the one in charge, doing whatever I wanted whenever I wanted. I would block out that voice in my mind telling me ‘no’ and amplify my behaviour until that voice diminished to an eventual silence. I was comfortable with this lifestyle. I was happy doing what I felt brought me happiness. I didn’t want to change anything about this lifestyle as I thought it was perfect for me. I was ‘happy’ in my daily routine knowing what I’d be doing that day and who I would be seeing.

This comfortable life soon turned into an unfulfilled and unsatisfactory routine. I was living the same way but it felt different. I was no longer satisfied and content with anything. That voice that I had always shunned into a silence was louder than ever and I couldn’t escape it. I was scared. I didn’t want to leave the life I had always known and was so comfortable with, but I knew it was now or never.

My comfort zone break-out had begun. One thing God blessed me with that helped me on this journey was surrounding me with (truly great) people that were an amazing support and encouragement for me. I had seen my brother completely change his life for the better and he badly wanted the same for me. He was the first hand guiding me in this new journey and always pushing me get out of my old, comfortable routine. Before I knew it my daily routine was changing and I was starting to notice how much my life was changing too. I was being introduced to new people and became part of a new community that were bringing me closer to God. This was really helping me let go of old habits.

Admittedly, part of me wasn’t ready to take the huge leap back into my own Coptic church community. I was anxious and nervous of going back to the church I had tried escaping for so long. I didn’t want to face people that I had tried to avoid for so many years of my life and I was scared of rejection and disappointment. God, however, had a different plan for me. He continually sent me people that I could rely on and feel comfort around. These people encouraged me to take that dreaded leap and go on my first ever church conference, which was exactly a year ago now. He taught me to rely on Him and to trust His plan more than my own. I learnt how to really communicate with Him and more importantly how to listen to Him. He started to change my life in so many ways that I couldn’t have done on my own.

The main piece of advice I would give anyone wanting to take that step further in his or her spiritual journey, but is held back by fear of stepping out of what they feel is their comfort zone, is to remember you’re never on this journey alone. “Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.” Joshua 1:9.

Here are some steps that will help;

Step 1:

Talk to God, He knows all that your heart desires and will give you the strength and courage to fulfill all the things you couldn’t do alone.

Step 2:

Remind yourself that there will never be the ‘perfect’ time to take this brave leap and push yourself out of your comfort zone. God’s planning and timing is so perfect that we could never remotely match his plans for us. In 2 Peter 3:8 we read that “With the Lord one day is as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day”. He is a patient and loving God and will wait for us until we allow Him to make us ready to find his promise.

Step 3:

Accept his eternal love for you. He watches over you through your most sinful and corrupt days, not with anger and disgrace, but with compassion and love and will provide you with his free gift of grace.

Step 4:

Obey his word. We are rewarded with salvation when we truly turn to Christ and fulfill His Word. Give Him an inch and He will give you a mile.

Step 5:

Trust Him with the things that scare you the most and He will provide you with bravery and strength you never thought you had.

By turning to God and surrendering my life to Him, he has given me endless rewards and blessings that I thank Him for everyday. He has provided with an amazing group of friends that encourage me on this new journey and fill my life with so much joy. The life I was once so comfortable in is now a faded memory, and all the past fear and anxiety God has now turned into excitement to see when He is going to take me next.

“For we walk by faith, not by sight”
2 Corinthians 5:7

I liked it so much, I kissed many. I never believed in considering future consequences, only the here and now, only in the moment where my body lusted and craved another.

I believed in hedonism.

I was a lover of a sugar-coated world, biting deep enough to reach the salt beneath; left parched and bereft. But when invited to dine with the Divine, I counted up the cost and I conceded that He was worth it all. Because when you see the light, darkness doesn’t stand a chance. When you see the light, you cannot deny its existence.

“The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in the land of the shadow of death, upon them a light has shined.”
Isaiah 9:2

We tend towards hiding our not-so-pure stories, locking them deep into caskets that no one may see or hear. We profess forgiveness like we do breathing, yet shame whispers “tell no one” and we trust its every word. In a community amongst those who testify to the living Word, Who is pure and holy, Who calls us to be as He is, we feel there is no room for our stories of grace. We see the awe in people’s eyes as they intently listen to testimony after testimony, whilst observing how the same story-tellers are not trusted, always on trial. So we sit in silence, hear stories like ours being called a disgrace, bite our tongues as people express the need to marry only a “pure” spouse.

Yet, forgiveness does not beckon silence. And grace does not hide away our past sins. Rather it holds each thorn up to the light and transforms them into pure white lilies, with each petal holding a unique story, not to be forgotten, lest the power of grace be forgotten.

There’s a woman whose story I know well. Or perhaps, it is she that knows mine. A nameless woman, yet not a faceless one, for I have seen her face countless times when I’ve looked in the mirror. The courageous woman on the sixth hour of Wednesday eve.

She can see the Man she came for. She had heard that Christ had come to the house of the Pharisee. It was not too late to turn around, forget it all, save looking foolish, call it a moment of insanity. Yet, despite any doubt, she feels her feet carry her forward. Ardent, panting and perspiring, she makes her way to the large inner chamber of the banquet weaving through all the people. She does not dare look up. She can feel the heat of their burning disproval on the back of her neck. She hears the steady hum of conversation dwindle to hushed tones of disgust and scandal as they recognise her. People are moving a safe distance away from her. She pays them no mind, her eyes locked on this one Man. She had boldly chased after many men, but none like this. The room is silent now as they realise Who she came for. Does she really have the audacity to come before this righteous Man who claims to be God?

She walks forward, with one thing in mind. Sharp inhale. She stops right in front of him. Without lifting her eyes from the ground, she quietly and slowly kneels and lets down her hair. Memories flash before her of all those nights she used her hair as a snare to seduce, remembering all those fingers that ran wild and passionately through them. Her vision blurs as her eyes pour. Thick, heavy droplets of regret fall to His feet. She remembers the words spoken to her, how it was always her eyes that drew them in and held them captive, possessing their own alluring power. The eyes that stained her life with sin, now moistened His feet.

She stammers. With no words to say she does the only thing she could; she washes His feet. She takes her trembling hands, the same vessels that fed the pleasures of men, cups His feet and holds the thick strands of her locks to wipe them. She wonders if she has crossed a line, but He does not stop her or move away. She was accustomed to desiring men, but never desiring their forgiveness.

She takes her lips, lips that eagerly sought and caressed bare flesh, and kisses His feet. The room breaks out in shock; horror and objections ring loud in the room. An exchange of mutterings, naming her immoral, worthless and irreverent. She feels Him staring at her but she feels no fear and no shame. The others see Him staring at her, in a way they haven’t seen Him stare before. His eyes glisten, there is warmth. She knows how it feels to be stared at by a man, a ravaging stare full of fervent desire, but this was not the same. She feels Him look right through her. She is known, for the first time.

She pulls out her alabaster flask, her costly jar of sensual pleasure used to arose her lovers. The memories race, the images flash. She forcefully pushes them away as she breaks the alabaster flask. Her tears mingle with perfume and she continues to wipe with her hair. She kisses and pours; impure lips become holy. The beautiful fragrance rises. He does not speak but she feels His radiating, pure love. She feels something unexplainable she has never known before. Is this acceptance? Is this what it means to belong? She lifts up her head, looks Him in the eye, and she knows; nothing will ever be the same.

Luke 7 has its ending, but I’ve always wondered what happens next. I think of her departure to her normal life after being told that she was forgiven and loved. I think of how she must have replayed that moment over and over again in her head, how she must have wanted to tell everyone, scream and dance because of how light she felt and how her heart must have burst with joy. That cherished moment she shared with Her Saviour will forever be theirs. I also think of the men who must have knocked on her door that night. All those men that kept knocking because they never believed that she could change. I think of years of learnt behaviour that was like second nature and all she saw from her former life when she closed her eyes to pray. I think of her walking back into her bedroom, those four walls that contained all her unchaste amorous nights, and trying to pray. To rise in the place that she fell.

For, redemption is no passive, tidy ideology. Redemption is real and redemption is messy, it is as messy as sweat and a bloody cross. And it is on that same cross that the proclamation was made, “Tetelestai,” confirming the end, it is finished, it is done. No need to walk with head hanging low, shame raised high, but walk joyously in the light. The light that beckons every soul; those who have given in to every single fleshly desire and all those who haven’t. Because the Light does not differentiate, it infiltrates every darkness; and darkness has no measure. It is that same Light that looks upon us with the eyes of compassion and gives us the assurance that,

“There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.”
Romans 8:1

Our belief in this truth is dependent solely on ourselves and not in other peoples responses to our former life, our own thoughts or the enemies lies. Our remembrance of our sexual sin can be crippling. We may be crippled by the way we once behaved; disregarding the holy in ourselves and in others. We may be crippled by the fear of falling back into old ways, and the fear of being too marred in the eyes of another. The taste of sexual pleasure is not an easy one to forget, and we may fear our longing for that same gratification. We may be haunted by the words spoken once on dark nights, or the daily glances that remind us of the power we possess. It is a life-long battle to fight, whilst holding tight to the truth that there is now no condemnation, and expectantly praying, “According to your good will, O God fill our hearts with your peace. Cleanse us from all blemish, all guile, all hypocrisy, all malice and the remembrance of evil entailing death” (The Liturgy According to St Basil the Great).

And as we pray this, may we approach the Eucharist, His own flesh and blood, just as the woman approached Him, offering every piece of herself at His feet, broken like the alabaster jar. She recognised Him not as an ordinary man but as her Saviour, yet we often approach Him as mere bread and wine, blind to the Majesty that pours Himself out before us. Let us walk repentantly, with fear and trembling, towards the Holy One and partake of the exchange of life that He offers, no matter what sin we laid with the night before, knowing that His love grants us the audacity to approach Him with confidence and being rooted in His Life, the mystical power to flee all other lovers.

So I will not be afraid to speak of my past sin, the desire of sin on skin, the Edenic memory of Adam and Eve’s freedom in expression and pleasure corrupted and abused. Because, this I know, forgiveness and freedom is mine, and though I am a woman of unclean lips, as my lips touch His feet, there is redemption’s tale to tell.

Let the fragrance rise.

Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a live coal which he had taken with the tongs from the altar. And he touched my mouth with it, and said:
“Behold, this has touched your lips; Your iniquity is taken away, And your sin purged.”
Isaiah 6:6-7

This body
My body
A swift sword
A time bomb
Ticking
Cutting

This soft skin that curves around me
That frames and encompasses me
I have seen its unsurpassed powers
I have tasted its intoxication
Eyes wide open
To its irresistible magic

Hard to forget
Its delicious sweet nectar
Dripping subtle, potent poison
This body
Is not a body
But a weapon

Of charm and deceit
Of self seeking ambition
I waste in admiration and affirmation
I glory in attention and adoration
I am a queen
Fluent in Sensuality’s language

The power euphoric
The formula, tried and tested
A gaze and a flutter of the eyes
The control to summon and cast away
The siren song that calls your name
To shipwreck on the stones

And I howl
“Come, I will take away your pain”
To those that pant for it gladly
Like a dark mist
Leaving corpses rotten and defiled
Asphyxiating all breath, all life

So I numbed all feeling
Revelled in my conquer and rule
Sank my feet in my reckless storm
This body
Is just a body
Empty, hollow and cold

The more it consumes
The more it seeks to devour
This body is flames
A trail of dust in its wake
Nothing it touches will escape
Nothing is left standing

Least of all myself
This body is foreign
I do not want it
So I hide and cover it
Who can free me
From this body of death?

A stranger in this body of death
Dismembered from my lifeless soul
I feel my body’s betrayal
Under a man’s unrelenting gaze
I feel the poison flood my veins again
When their heads turn

I am reminded of the queen I could be
The thrill of control
I feel the rumbling and the stirring
Threatening to take over
Seduction is awakening
She is hungry from her slumber

But I will deprive her
Lay her down in silent, painful death
Bind her in burial cloths and dig a grave
Roll a boulder in front of the entrance
Scream TETELESTAI
For indeed, it is finished

Because I am not poison, I am not sword
And I wait on a promise like a thread
Keeping me from fraying at the edges
Of the God who calls out to dry bones
Giving life to sinew after sinew
The God who never fails those who wait

The God who wore humanity’s chains
To shatter our every chain
The God who rolls heavy stones away from tombs
And raises from the dead
The God who puts heavy stones down out of your hand
And says, “Live loved”

In truth, I believe that in Him
All the old has passed away
In the Spirt
I am finally liberated
The Veil torn
My face unveiled

He steps into my tomb
And when I look Him in the eyes
I see myself
He tells me who I am
Not thorn but Lily
He tells me Rise and live

I believe, help my unbelief.

Co-written with Sandra.

“He [Jesus] went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written:

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him. He began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”

Luke 4:16-21

This was Jesus’ response to my wounds, and I needed those exact words. Just picture yourself in that synagogue, sitting right opposite Jesus as He unrolls the scroll and proclaims those words. As He tells you so bluntly and powerfully that He is anointed and that He’s here to proclaim good news to you. Visualize your spiritual poverty now, visualize the state of your Spirit’s health. He’s here to proclaim good news to the poor. That’s you.

Imagine being on the second bench from the back in that synagogue, overwhelmed by work, studies, money, life. Feeling imprisoned and constricted, struggling to breathe from the pressure and anxiety you feel. And now in this very moment, of complete hopelessness, Jesus, the Prince of Heaven, looks directly at you as He holds the scroll of Isaiah and proclaims “I’m here to free the prisoners”. Just His stare, or his voice alone as He speaks these words, shatters the shackles tying you down into fragments. He’s here to proclaim freedom for the prisoners. That’s you.

As you sit in this synagogue full of shame, surrounded by your righteous Jewish brothers and sisters who, in your eyes, keep the law to the word, you begin to feel the weight of sin. And yet again Jesus steals your attention as He reads the next line of the passage and says that He’s here to recover the sight of the blind. You know He’s talking about you. You know you’re the one blinded by the heavy cloud of sin surrounding you. And you know you need recovery of your sight. He’s here to give recovery of sight for the blind. That’s you.

Your eyes start tearing up, tears of joy, tears of peace and comfort, tears of acceptance, of freedom. As you look into His eyes, you can’t help but smile. You can’t wait to hear what other promises He’s about to bestow upon you today. He sees you and with the biggest smile He reads “to set the oppressed free” then looks directly at you. All the oppression of Satan, all his attacks and lies, that’s tied you down is lifted. He’s here to set the oppressed free. That’s you.

You close your eyes in awe of the words Jesus is speaking to you and your Spirit begins offering a song of praise to God. You don’t deserve all this love. It doesn’t make any sense that you, a sinner in the synagogue with a stained heart, should receive these promises from Jesus. And in that moment, in that moment of thankfulness Jesus says that He is here to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor. It wasn’t enough for Him to proclaim good news to you, to free you, to recover your sight and to end your oppression. He’s now promising you a year of the Lord’s favor?! A year of joy and freedom in God?! What.

You eyes are wide open. Your whole being is focused on Him. Nothing and no-one but Him, as if all has gone out of focus. Jesus, compassionately smiling, looks directly at you and says to you “today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing”.

You are no longer poor.
You are no longer a prisoner.
You are longer blind.
You are no longer oppressed.

You, are favored by Jesus.

As I received Jesus’ promises this morning I was moved to tears. Life is tough, it’s not easy. We won’t always get what we want when we want, and sometimes it’s just going to be rough. That’s fact. But it’s also fact that Jesus has always and will always be here. It is fact that He has the power to free me from any hardship I go through. And it certainly is fact that I am loved and favored by Him and He delights over me with singing.

Today, let your wounds be healed in the synagogue.

“Masks can be beautiful on the surface, but steal the heart of joy;
yet stunning is the one who isn’t afraid of her secrets.”

– Jennifer Strickland

There’s a cycle – of putting things behind, only for them to return. There’s a gap that we jump from our old life to a new, not knowing that building a bridge can keep us from falling. The gap is shame; the bridge is self-forgiveness.

I am the new man. Cleaned to perfection. But the dirt stain once washed beams brighter on this silk white garment.

The new man grows out of a mere behavior modification; changing my every action until all my habits become good. It is genuine, it does not come out of emptiness, but a deep hunger to be transformed into who I was born to be.

But behavior modification can only run for so long before the fuel runs out, before my appetite for the things ungodly grows.

We change our behaviors and move on from our past, but we do not reconcile with our past self. We condemn our past self and walk away from the person we once were, not knowing that reconciliation is needed, that forgiveness is needed.

Because too often I shut out the memories, I hide back the mistakes done by me, the mistakes done to me and I pretend that my former life never existed; but that’s called faking it. And I refuse to perpetuate the idea that you should “fake it till you make it.”

I want to walk in the liberty that my past self is not just dead and forgotten, but is resurrected and alive in Christ; fully forgiven, fully restored and finally freed.

But I absorb every hidden stone; the indirect critic, the Pharisaic remarks and the voice that begs to call me unforgiven. If history’s giant towers so high above me, surely they can all see it too. Weakened by my inner shame, it calls me to run to isolation.

“If distress is the affect of suffering, shame is the affect of indignity, transgression and of alienation. Though terror speaks to life and death and distress makes of the world a vale of tears, yet shame strikes deepest into the heart of man…. shame is felt as inner torment, a sickness of the soul…. the humiliated one feels himself naked, defeated, alienated, lacking in dignity and worth.”
Silvan Tomkins

I hear Him say, “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.”

But I do not feel it. And the truth is, I’m barely believing it. I’m holding onto his truth with 60% faith, cause shame claims the rest.

But in the darkness of my shame grace lets me see His eyes. There is a gentle kindness in His eyes, a warmth that looks upon me with great love and affection.

“And the Lord turned and looked at Peter. Then Peter remembered the word of the Lord, how He had said to him, “Before the rooster crows, you will deny Me three times.”

Luke 22:61

Oh my soul, I know that look. This is far from a look of disappointment. That look that pulls me in close and holds every last part of me I can’t bear, cradling the stifling waves of shame that roar to stillness. The look that says “I will stay,” even in your rejection of Me. It says “I will never leave,” even when you deny Me. The same eyes that looked upon the man with the withered hand and declared healing, the same eyes that wept over Jerusalem’s hardened heart, the same eyes that looked at the rejected lepers and cleansed, the same eyes that looked up at Zaccheus immersed in sin and accepted fully.

These eyes see my pain, understand altogether and do not condemn my past. These eyes write poems of me and not one is disappointed by my weakness but rather longs to enter my pain and overwhelmingly conquer it for me. Because I am His poem and He wrote you and I to reveal Himself and make known the character of God. So the way I choose to tell the story of my past is a gift He has given me.

So I turn and look into myself with His eyes not mine: I look into myself and love what’s there. I look into His eyes daily and choose to believe that there is now no condemnation. I flee the dark thoughts of myself and break through on the wings of grace. I gather each thought, every memory and every action, that broke my heart and breaks it still and love myself through it. I gather them as the sower gathers seeds and plant them in the fault lines of my heart that once quaked my earth and pray for rain. If rain’s His mercy then in the midst of brokenness, gardens will spring and songbirds will wake. Maybe the cracks in my heart are where the most fertile soil for the sowers’ seeds lie.

So I am learning to forgive myself, learning to set myself free.

“Do not fear, for you will not be ashamed;
Neither be disgraced, for you will not be put to shame;
For you will forget the shame of your youth,
And will not remember the reproach of your widowhood anymore.
For your Maker is your husband,
The Lord of hosts is His name;
And your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel;
He is called the God of the whole earth.“
Isaiah 54:4-5

“I found God in myself
and I loved her
I loved her fiercely.”
– Ntozake Shang

Co-written with Sandra.

Check out part one here!

The rhythm is self pity, the tune is sorrow. Things being what they are often do not work out the way we want them to. People, being what they, are often let us down.
Breakups, being what they are, down-right suck. I will not attempt to reason it away; the ‘who’s,’ the ‘where’s’ and the ‘why’s’ are a myriad of complexities and best left at that.

I don’t know where this idea came from that the past must remain a forgotten memory of the past, and if not forgotten, then deeply regretted. I don’t know why we feel the need to condemn relationships that have ended, whether with a friend or a lover, filing them in our “greatest mistakes” cabinet. I don’t know why it’s easier to shake fists when looking back over smiling. I don’t know why we willingly choose the pain and regret over joy. I don’t know why it’s easier to dwell in hate for all that he wasn’t, over gratitude for all that he was.

“If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster and treat those two impostors just the
same”; you too can be grateful without letting it be your master and being wistful for what once was.

Perhaps the ending of a relationship is a perceived failure on our part? Perhaps it is the heartache and the pain that ensued? But should such reasons make us regret every single moment a relationship lasted, and cause us to force ourselves to forget every good that came from it? Why should we choose to etch the error’s in our minds but not the lessons learnt and truths discovered out of or through that other person?

The song plays on. Keep a list: “All The things That Were Wrong With Him.” File away in the Vault of Painful Memories. Study it. Memorise it. All the while the bitter root grows and pierces the soil, further infecting everything.

But I refuse to perpetuate this.

If I were to write a list and tuck it away in my mind I would title it: “This Man That I Honour. This Man That I Respect.” Because no man deserves to be stripped of his honour when he makes a mistake. No man should be critically judged and though our hearts may shout “hang ’em high” – this we must silence. We must use our voice to speak up and defend, because to silence that would be to wallow in misery. In the spiritual war we are in, we must not let the mistakes – the perceived short-sightedness, immaturity or selfishness – make us forget that the other person is just a soldier like us, trying to stay alive.

We do not wrestle against flesh and blood. They are not our enemy. And, we, the Hallelujah people, we need to be the grace people; the people extending grace in everything. If not, we become grace-forfeiters, and our hallelujahs are in vain.

For this is not the way we are called to live: in caged forts of “should have known better’s” and “how could they’s” – thinking that this fort is our refuge when it’s actually our prison. Meanwhile, the crescendo of their wrongdoings and misgivings rises higher. A crescendo that separates us from the Maestro. Because where resentment resides, He cannot. It leaves no place for Him to lay His head. Does putting off resentment mean that their wrongdoings did not cut right through? No. Does their misgivings take away their honour?

Should we let it?

St. John Kronstadt said, “Love every man in spite of his falling into sin. Never mind the sins, but remember that the foundation of the man is the same – the image of God.”

We will treat the weaknesses and failures of others with grace when we humbly admit that we’re more like them than unlike them (Paul Tripp). It is out of the same brokenness that we all fall and it is to the same hope that we all cling; His image in us, the one He is transforming into His likeness. And with that comes the promise: He will continue the good work He started (Phil 1:6).

So what if, they did the unimaginable? What if the proportions of the wrongs were profound?

Consider this: Jesus washed Judas’ feet. Three years worth of companionship, three years worth of doing gritty yet wondrous life together and Jesus sees his worth to Judas as a mere 30 pieces of silver. He sees the betrayal in his eyes and washes dirt and grime away from Judas’ feet; to do otherwise would be to deny His own heart. To do otherwise ourself would be to deny His heart. What Jesus did was simple. Let’s not ever confuse simple and easy. There are a whole lot of things that are hard to do, but they are perfectly simple because God is telling you, “This is what I want you to do.” The forgiving and the letting go and the laying down of our right to a better ending (one where we don’t have to stare failure in the face) and the letting ourselves be wronged. They may seem like too much to endure and allow but the truth is: what is too much to endure is to lugg through life with all that terrible burden of vindictiveness.

We were made to live free and live light.

There is nothing freeing about being angry at how they are a villain or how unfair it was when we turned into a villain. It is a deception of freedom. It may seem powerful but it’s only power is to keep the strings of emotional attachment tight.

We’re all just trying to work it all out; stumbling, imperfectly. We can all create ruin and ruin each other a little more than before. And when the wreckage lies all around us, its easy to pick up the shards and hold on. It’s easy to pick up the shards and pierce each other. But this need not exist any longer. Lay down every shard even if it feels like it is killing you; death in the Kingdom of God isn’t the worst of things.

May we find ourselves in a place where we never stop giving thanks. Because to live a life of gratitude, it isn’t picking and choosing, it’s being grateful for all; for the good, the bad and every mistake made along the way – by you or against you.

So set him free and set yourself free.

May your heart be brave and your head be strong.

All is not lost.

Grace is here.

“Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ, God forgave you.” Now, how was that? He had to die, didn’t He? He had to go to the cross and die. And if it hadn’t been for that, where would we be?”
Elisabeth Elliot

Co-written with Makrina.

“I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live”

Deuteronomy 30:19