Power of a Praying Woman 10/17/06 9:02 AM Page 244
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The Power of a Praying Woman
Whether it’s something that happened as long ago as your early childhood or as recently as yesterday, the past can keep you from moving into all God has for you. That’s why He wants to set you free from it. And not only that, He wants to redeem and restore what has been lost or destroyed in your past and make it count for something important in your life now. The truth is, you can never move into the future God has for you if you are continually stuck in the past. When you received Jesus you became a new creation. He made all things new in your life, and He wants you to live like it. God says to forget the former things, but that’s not easy to do. How do we forget what happened to us? Do we need to have amnesia? Or a frontal lobotomy? Must we live in denial? Do we have to pretend that the past did not happen? Should we have part of our brain liposuctioned? The answer is no to all of the above. We just have to pray that God will set us free from the past so we can live successfully in the present. One of the great mysteries of the Lord is how He can take the horrible, the tragic, the painful, the devastating, the embarrassing, and the ruinous experiences and memories of our lives and not only heal them, but use them for good. It’s not that He will make you unable to recall them, but He will heal you so thoroughly from their effects that you no longer think about them with any pain. He will give you a new life you enjoy so much you don’t want to travel back in your mind to the old one. You will still have the memory, but you no longer have the pain. Instead, you will have praise in your heart for the way God has restored you to wholeness. And you will want to share your experience with others so that they can know this kind of deliverance, restoration, and healing is there for them too.