Yesterday I told you I was starting the book of Romans in my Bible reading.  I mentioned that this book always has troubled me somewhat because it went into living the Christian life in ways I just couldn’t seem to comprehend or live.  An amazing thing is happening however as I read day one and day two of this remarkable book.  Yesterday, God showed me about circumcision.  He showed me the old, unneeded flesh that I still struggled to have Him cut away.  This flesh being removed, today He showed me how His Son Jesus paid the price once and for all for what that old flesh was covering.  In Christ so doing this I was a new creation.  I was no longer bound by the grips of this sin.  Along with the truth that I was no longer bound by the sin, I could have it exposed and still hold my head high.  Exposing it made it a testimony for God to use assisting others with their own bondage.

As I write this I am thinking that anyone reading this would think I’m talking about a past time in my life.  I’ve written about all this in different ways for the past few years and in my book.  Well, the actual bondage that has still had its grip on me is that of homosexuality.  Yes, I was used this way for 12+ years.  Along with this my dad called me “Hazel” and said I’d make a good wife for someone someday.  He belittled all the manly characteristics within me.  These acts of man did their number on me and what I’ve believed about me.  Today, however, God did His final weed pulling.  He got to the end of the root on this false belief I’ve struggled with and tried to hide behind.  Little did I understand that this would be what the old flesh I had God cut away yesterday would expose.  Yet today, God said it was time for me to have FAITH in what Christ did for me so many years ago.  The veil of darkness from this haunting past is finally “rent in twain”.  This ugly belief I was left with is gone.  I’m sure Satan will try to replant it in days to come.  When he does, I have a new response for him which now for the first time–I believe to be true.  I will tell him he is a liar and I am a born again child of the King.  I am a new creation.  He has no place in me.

Being the gardener that I am, this whole thing makes me think of 18 years ago when Kathy and I first moved into our present home.  It was February of 1998.  The 1+ acre we purchased had been a cow pasture prior to this but hadn’t been used as such for several years.  It was nothing but a weed patch.  When I planted my first garden here I was stunned by all the morning glory that was growing everywhere strangling out everything I’d planted.  In order to dispose of it I had to literally kill everything I’d planted and focus only on killing the morning glory.  I cringed the day I went out and sprayed the entire garden knowing there would be no harvest the rest of the season.  However, each garden since has been a great crop of vegetables and berries able to be shared with many.

Today I feel like God has removed the last of the morning glory which Satan had planted so many years ago when this older man was a young boy.  There are so many song phrases going through my head right now.  The one I want to type here is:  Then sings my soul, my Savior God to Thee, How Great Thou Art–How Great Thou Art!