Exchanging the Garments

I rejoice greatly in the LORD, my soul will exult in my God; for He has clothed me with garments of salvation, He has wrapped me with a robe of righteousness. Isaiah 61:10

I look at this verse and it is a wonderful reminder to me of what takes place the moment we accept Christ as our Savior and are born into God’s family. Instantaneously, we receive all the luxuries of being God’s child. The day I trusted Christ, He changed my identity, my destiny, and my relationship to Himself. That was completed and unalterable. Yet I have learned He still has much to do in my internal world.

He has spent the past three decades helping me to see the areas in my life that need His healing touch. The longer I know Him the deeper He goes, the more profound His measures, and the more radical the freedom. What many times may start out as steps of fear and timidity eventually become the places in which I learn to dance! While I may cringe at the process I come to cherish the transformation.

This is exactly what took place for me this past weekend while visiting some friends in Wisconsin. God had been bringing me to a place of opening up an area embedded in my memory from early childhood. It wasn’t a repressed memory by any means. It was something I was totally aware of for the last 44 years. The incident left me frozen and unable to voice its existence. God had let me know that when this event had taken place a robe of innocence was taken from me and it was replaced by a garment of shame. In order to exchange the garments I had to expose the secret. Over the course of a three day visit I found myself in a safe haven. Safe enough to finally open up and verbalize to my friend what had taken place. She listened without condemnation and then voiced the words I needed to hear, “That shouldn’t have happened to you. It wasn’t right!” We had a precious time of prayer and then took a piece of paper with the perpetrator’s name on it over to a paper shredder to finalize the closure. Finally, that little child in me was able to exchange the garment of shame for God’s intended garment of innocence. Thus ended a 44 year internal world of turmoil. I now embrace a freedom of great proportion!

Father, You saw the first exchange when I was just four years old. You then wept for me as I wore the wrong garments for all these years. It is with joy I now don the robe You have given back to me. Amen.

*****I share this with you in order to help someone who might also be haunted by memories of shame in their own life. For some people they can simply take it to God and come away whole. For me, I needed to get the secret out. If that is you, ask God to lead you to a person equipped to listen and handle what is to be exposed. Preferably someone who has had some training. This person’s role is to allow you to speak what has been painful. Then they can tell you what you need to hear….it was wrong for someone to do that to you. Please don’t continue to wear garments that were never intended for you.