She sat in her cell – alone, angry, frustrated. The chains that bound her felt heavier than before. Weeping and screaming in agony, she cried, “no more of this! no more of this!” She pleaded, but it seemed like her cries fell on deaf ears.
There was no one around her. She was all alone – left to suffer, left to carry the heavy burden by herself.
Her sorrow gave way to anger. She cried out against the people who had locked her up. She detested them now – oh how they had betrayed her. Selfish, inhumane, vile creatures they were. They had dragged her into the cell and left her there in chains, to struggle and suffer. How she longed to escape, how she longed to taste freedom again. But it just wasn’t hers to taste.
It seemed like years since she had last roamed freely. She remembered her days of joy, how she had danced and sang with those that loved her – her family, her friends, her co-workers, her husband.
But now, they had all betrayed her. They had left her here, in this cell, bound by anger and despair, all alone to rot. She longed to be free and she prayed for her savior to come, to rescue her from the shackles…
…and so he came. Standing at the doors of the prison cell, he snapped his fingers and the bars came crashing down. She looked at his face with hope in her eyes.
“Do you want to be free?” he asked.
“Yes”, she said.
“Then why are you here?”
“They betrayed me. They bound me, locked me here and put these chains on my hands. Please…set me free.”
“Do you really want to be free?” he asked again, with a sad smile on his face.
“YES”, she said, louder this time.
He pointed at the bars that weren’t standing anymore – “then walk out.”
“I can’t”, she cried, lifting up her hands towards him with clenched fists to show the chains that bound her.
“Do you really want to be free?” he asked again.
“YES”, she screamed, in agony, shaking her clenched fists, “why won’t you set me free. Why did you let them bind me here?”
He smiled at her. “I already set you free child. You called out to me, and I came and rescued you. I let you walk out of here. Don’t you remember? Yesterday, and the day before that, and the one before, for so long. Remember?”
She remembered. He had always answered. He had always come to break open the prison doors.
And she had escaped so many times. But somehow, she had always landed up back in the cell.
“Why did you let them bring me back here?” she sobbed.
He knelt down to wipe the tears from her eyes. “They weren’t the ones who brought you here child. It was not them who bound you.”
She looked into his eyes – “then who?”
He held her hands in his. Gently unclenching her fists, he took the key to the chains that she had been holding.
Still smiling, he answered her – “It was you.”
“Return, faithless people; I will cure you of backsliding.” “Yes, we will come to you, for you are the LORD our God.”
Jeremiah 3:22
