As a young child, I was always in church. My mom and dad, even as young parents, made sure my sister and I were in choir, children’s programs, picnics, revivals and any other church related activities. At the tender age of 7, God reached down and spoke His life into my heart, and I have never been the same after receiving the unconditional love of the Savior. We attended church schools and got an education that was proper and prepared us for college, if we so chose, and we did. Yes, we were both in the classification of “not like the others” in our respective peer groups. On the outside, I appeared to be a really great kid.
But living out the “not the same” was different. Once I walked the aisle and was baptized, I though naively I would live a clean, pure life with ease. At the age of 7, I didn’t know that profession of faith was only my beginning of a constant struggle of flesh and godliness raging at every turn. I was a “good kid” in the eyes of the world. I was a decent student, tried to obey my parents and live a pure life. As I grew older there were challenges cast, but not in the same areas of many of my friends. I didn’t do drugs. I was not a participant in behaviors that would land me in detention or suspension from school. I wasn’t involved in the sexual awakening of some of my peers during high school. I saved myself for marriage and it was a decision I made by myself and contentedly. I wanted to be the stellar kid, and I was in many ways…but it wasn’t easy. Looking back I can see the struggle was in reconciling the new mind and body and life with the old Rhonda. I thought the two were ok in coexistance, but I was so wrong. There was always an underlying draw to go right up to line that my Christian life had drawn in the sand, peek over it a little, maybe even stick one light little toe over the line…just to see what would happen. I didn’t break free of that pull until much later in life.
This struggle was deeply spiritual, and it took many years to realize it and what the root of it was. Although God had given me a new life, new hope, and new purpose, I had not laid down the old Rhonda, I had chosen to take her along into my new life.
In my 20’s and 30’s, I attended Bible Study Fellowship along with hundreds of women for several years. Daily Bible study became a way of life for me and I looked forward to meeting with my small group of friends each week, discussing the scripture assignments and marveling at God’s work in all our lives. We shared our struggles and successes, and for me it was a way to push down the old Rhonda, but never quite putting her away forever. I made her behave better, but she was still tied to me under the surface of what I allowed the world to see of me every day.
One week, we went in to listen to the lecture given by the leader of the branch of BSF I attended. I admired the way she could speak in front of a group and teach truths that I had not understood in the daily readings. She was a tool God used to bring those truths to life for me. One week, we were studying the passage of scripture where Paul spoke about “the body of death”. I can only say at that moment for the first time in my life as she spoke, I could feel my spirit quicken inside. I knew this was something I needed to study further to understand my own struggles in doing what God commanded but still wanting to cross the line in so many areas. I began to realize wanting to cross it was the same as crossing it in God’s commands.
So I began to study, and this is what I learned.
Paul wrote of the body of death in Romans 7:24-25. “O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.”
In Biblical times, when someone would commit a crime, the ruling tyrants in the area didn’t feed, clothe, house them in jails in many cases. If someone stole, the offending hand was cut off. A liar may have his tongue cut out leaving him mute for the rest of his life. And a murderer? That person may have to bear the body of death. As soon as the condemned was pronounced judgment, the body of the murdered would be chained tightly to the murderer, back to back in most cases, but face to face in others…lip to lip, heart to heart, eye to eye. This was done right in the courtroom in front of friends, family and curious spectators. The putrid, filthy, rotting corrosive body was never disentangled from the every day functions of the offender, and he was forced to live in the streets. The convicted then dragged the corpse through the alleys and thoroughfares , unable to hide from the stares of common folk, frightened children, and visiting dignitaries alike. One look at the stinking mass of humanity was enough to turn the stomachs of any who saw and made an indelible memory in their own minds. The humiliation was great, the grotesque image burned into the psyche of those who saw.
As the dead body continued to deteriorate, the gaseous emissions would reach the nostrils of those in close proximity, the body bloated and began to lose its parts to the horror of spectators. Retching in the streets became a common sound. The body of death began to eat into the body not yet dead, and start its devilish journey that would end quickly in the additional and sure demise of the one bearing the dead body.
And when I read those descriptions, I knew in my own soul, this was me. But at that point in my life, I was still wanting to control myself, by myself. And God gave me over to the body of death for a season.
I had watched God reach down and save me from a life of sin as a 7 year old child. I had even seen Him work as I presented the already fairly clean portions of me to the general public. I served among His people, I taught, I brought His songs to hundreds in many churches and venues over the years, I led women’s groups and Bible studies, I wrote articles for Christian magazines. Even after all this, there came a time the body of death I was carrying began to eat into the new body Christ had given me as a believer at a faster pace in new ways. Spiritual bondage had set in and I had chained it to my own life by my choices and subsequent rationalized behaviors.
As time went on and the old thoughts and sins would arise inside, I began to live more and more of a chained existence, and I suddenly felt I could not break free . I made poor choices, I chose outright sinfulness in my lifestyle. I engaged in patterns that were tying me back to the old self. Although I was able to keep this secret life under a cover of a smiling, happy believer, I knew that the body of death I had been dragging around with me had begun to eat into my very body and I was headed to a real disaster.
Where there’s rotten fruit, there is a rotten root. I began to see so many attitude changes emerging, I began to pile on bad choice after bad choice in an effort to “feel better”. I began a relationship that was full of rotten fruit. The old saying “Our secrets make us sick” was never more true than it was during those five years of my life. The body of death continued to eat away at the beautiful life God had given me years before, and everything I was choosing was adding more and more chain.
Buried things will eat us alive, guilt makes us ill and can last a lifetime if we feed it. I had been feeding old guilt and shame with new guilt and shame for years. We are not truly set free until we rid ourselves of the need to impress people and even God with all our actions and self deprecating behaviors. I knew to be freed, I needed to have someone “with skin on” that I could talk to, confess to, be held accountable to. And God brought a miracle person into my life almost immediately when I began to pray to be delivered from the allure of my buried life. In the unconditional time spent with this friend I began to pour out the detailed sadness of many years, the embarrassment of the choices I had made, the longing to right the situation and remove myself from its grip. Confession was good for my soul, and God was the caretaker of my heart and mind through it all. He gave grace to the listener, I was never sitting in condemnation, I was never let to feel unworthy and my words were accepted just as I was. I worked out my struggle in the presence of this friend, and am so grateful God didn’t require I do it alone. God cut off the chains from the old Rhonda, laid her back down into the dust of the earth, while raising me back up to the new life I should have been living all along. I thank God He brought me out of that bondage. And I thank Him He is still in the business of cutting chains and healing. I regret the years wasted on the one hand, but thank God for that experience because I have been able to be the listening “chain cutter” for others.
God has shown me He is enough for me, and I am enough for Him. Much of the chain I had forged was in trying to impress others, looking for approval, seeking to measure up so to speak. I looked to others…the wrong others…to let me know I was ok. Some of that started in my childhood, but much filtered into my adulthood because the old Rhonda refused to die. I carried all the old grievances into my new life and it played out in all sorts of ways. Now I find myself looking back only long enough to remember how far I have come, as I tread forward confidently.
To stay on track, I do ask myself a lot of questions…
Why am I angry? Why am I wasting so much time in self pity? What makes me feel content and is it a godly contentment? Why do I shame myself for my past choices when God has been gracious to forgive me? Is He not my perfect example of forgiveness, even of self? Why do I have a hard time with rejection and have a difficulty believing someone can love me but still not agree with me? If I put down a sin years ago, why I am I resuscitating it in my mind? Dead is dead, dust is dust…right?
Today I may still have times of mental, emotional and spiritual trial but I know I never have to deal with self alone and in secret again. As I keep the word of God close in my heart, and gather godly friends with listening ears and good counsel close by as my bolt cutters, any chains I may attempt forge will easily fall away, and that loathsome body of death is left to perish in the dust. These days the fragrance of my new life is much preferred over sin’s big ole stink.
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