Everything Can Change in a Sudden Moment

 

The Filled the Boat book that I recently put onto my website was written about a unique time that started off feeling like a prison, but God opened the door to bring us into plentiful relief. 

 

A ‘prison’ type of experience is when you cannot do what you need, it is a time of being restricted, such as the prison of poverty. During the experience in that book, I was faced with a life and death type of situation with no way to get free….except by using my faith to see the door opened. 

 

It was written about an experience from another time, and yet I have found myself walking through a ‘prison type’ of experience again. It has been a time of not being able to do what I needed, and trusting God to deliver the promised rescue to cover our needs. 

 

The part about walking through such a time, is God has been using it to heal me from a wound that developed long ago, after being in a toxic, abusive, controlling marriage. 

 

For around 17 years I was married to a man that felt like a prison, it was suffocating, abusive, and I had no freedom at all. It was more like a hostage situation if anything, and being restricted and abused for so long left some long term marks that I would need to have healed. 

 

It’s been ten years since my husband then had left us and took the home that we had for his affair. We were renting a home in the perfect little neighborhood, and I was a stay-home mom, per his direction. 

 

So when he left me unexpectedly, I found myself free from the prison, but with no way to support myself or my children. Yet God met me there and gave me promises to be our support, and He promised me that I would have “absolute freedom”, meaning there was nothing that I would be unable to do. 

 

With that promise came God’s request for me to follow His path and not run off and take a job. He has a reason for everything, and the encounter of this journey had to be done a certain way, in order for me to experience and learn what He wanted to me to see and share with you. The word freedom is a dream to me, and the times when God has had us walk through times that felt like a prison would bring out some uglier emotions, such as anger, resentment, and impatience. 

 

I hate being controlled and restricted, and since God had me start walking this way to trust His promises to support us financially, there were times when I experienced unfathomable freedom, but there were also times when it felt like a prison because I had to be patient and trust God to deliver the support for our needs. 

 

I found that He did not always send what we needed in a time that I would have thought. There were times when He would have me “wait it out” and exercise my faith while holding onto a promise. 

 

Honestly, I love the union of flowing with love to Jesus and to abide in His love and in His promises, but going through times like that felt like a prison financially caused some areas to come out that needed to be healed. 

 

I found while walking through prison type times, that I had been unknowingly been keeping a fear of imprisonment, which was keeping me from ever having a deep, close relationship with a man. 

 

Anytime a relationship would get too close for comfort, I would run away, because I was afraid of being locked away in a marriage that felt like a prison again. I was afraid of abuse….

 

So God has been using the times that I have been walking through recently to heal my perspective of marriage, of men, and helping me to believe in His ever-present freedom for His promise to cover all of our needs. 

 

There has been counseling, and God has been having me do certain actions to move along the healing of a prison perception. When I walk by faith, and see by faith, I know that all that I need is covered, and that there are no restrictions. 

 

God has given the promise of absolute freedom, and that means there is always more than enough to cover the rooms, the food, and the bills on this journey that He has taken us on. 

 

However, if my thoughts and perspective are still in a “prison mentality” then I am out of alignment, and I find myself restricted financially and unable to see the promise rise out miraculously to cover our needs. 

 

I wanted to share with you openly where we are at, what God has been taking me through, and what He has been healing me from. Long ago, when my husband abandoned ship, God promised me a true love husband. 

 

But that was a gift that I did not really want, and I was not ready for, because I still saw marriage, and men out of the wound of being in a prison, being abused, and suffering. 

 

I did not see the beauty of a human marriage, or the loveliness of a relationship. I wanted to stay alone with Jesus, where it was safe and where I would not have to have my dreams taken away. 

 

I had been seeing God’s promise of a true love as a predator, and whenever a relationship came close, I would run the other way, saying “I am not going back to prison” LOL. The healing of that is still a work in progress, and I love the journey of the healing and intimate way that Jesus is helping me to change. 

 

Jesus has been the perfect example of a husband to me, so the bar has been set very high. I love that He encourages me to grow and heal, and that He has given me the gift of freedom. Yet, I am still keeping my heart open to what God has planned for me in the times to come. 

 

In a way, this journey has felt like a prison. I wanted so desperately to be able to just get a job and have a normal life. Having to promote items on my store and trust in donations was not ideal, but this is an act of trust in the Lord. 

 

He promised that I would not be disappointed for taking this journey with Him or this path, when He asked me to follow Him into Illinois, with only His promise in my wallet. 

 

It has often been terrifying, when faced with the threats of not having the money to pay for the room, or to buy food, or cover phones, etc, but the freedom in the experience is seeing how God can show up to fulfill His promise over and over and again out of His ever-present love and support. 

 

He has rescued us so many times, like when my car was towed away, and it looked like our lives were over. We were in a hotel in Chicago with nowhere to go, and no money to do anything. 

 

I remember wondering if we would end up under a tree, but then God encouraged me to change my perspective and to visualize His promise showing up financially as our ever-present freedom. 

 

So I walked it out, and I used my faith to believe and imagine that we had the money to get the car back. The auto finance company was asking for thousands to get it back, and that seemed impossible since I had no money at all. 

 

Yet, God made a way to open the prison doors, and as I was walking out my faith, He sent me the thousands that I needed to get the car returned. He covered the hotel room long enough to return the car, and He saved us from being homeless, or living under a tree back then. 

 

The difference between my ex-husband, and Jesus is God’s words were trustworthy and true. God made vows to me to be our home, to cover us financially, and that we would not go without food. My ex-husband also made vows to me, and he managed to break every single one of them. 

 

But God kept His vows so far, and He has never left us with without a place of refuge, the comforts that we needed, and food to endure the long journey. 

 

Sometimes when you find yourself in a situation that feels like a prison, it is an opportunity to apply your faith to see the door opened, and to receive out of the freedom of God’s ever-present promise. 

 

More than anything, the prison is in the mind, in how we see things, and how we believe. Changing the way that we see a time of restriction can become the miracle door of so much freedom. 

 

There is always a door, when you see things by faith. There is always a way out of your troubles, when you look to Jesus to show up and deliver His ever-present promise. 

 

When facing a time that feels like a prison, see yourself on the other side by faith, and before you know it, the door of that faith test, or trial will be opened, and you’ll be outside amongst the blooming roses. It is not always as it seems in life, because we are not of this world. We are limitless, and all God has is ours. 

 

Everything can change at any moment, and the first step to seeing the change that we so desperately need is changing our perspective. When life and situations have you feeling like you are locked up, that is when it is time to enter through imagination and faith to see the freedom of promise bloom. It all starts from within. 

 

Instead of fretting over the bars and walls that have closed you in, and those things that you cannot take care of at the moment, choose to stop and smell the roses. Enter the promise through child-like faith, and everything can change in a sudden moment. 

 

 

Love, Dannette

 

https://diamondsfromthedust.com/

 

 

 

https://shop.diamondsfromthedust.com/p/filled-the-boat/