Monday, August 22, 2005
"Family secrets" - that was the bold headline in Newsweek. The story was inspired by what happened in the life of Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, who as she was being considered for that position, learned a secret her family had kept for decades. She thought her grandparents had been Czechoslovakian Catholics who died peaceful deaths. They were in fact Jews who'd been murdered in a Nazi concentration camp. But Newsweek was using that incident to point out how many families have secrets in their closets, from hidden adoptions to hushed-up romances, sometimes with painful consequences. Like Deborah Blanchard for example, she was a student at a music conservatory when she married an African-American man. She's white and she had two sons before that marriage ended in divorce.
When Deborah moved back to her parents' white neighborhood, her sons were not accepted there, so she decided they'd be better off living with an African American family. She put them up for adoption and tried to resume her life. But she was tormented by that decision. In fact, she lost her trained lyric-soprano voice. She said, "I was never able to sing after that." When she remarried, she kept her past a secret for ten years. When she finally confessed it to her husband, he responded compassionately, and they went on a search for her sons and there's a happy ending. In Newsweek's words, "The family was reunited, the secrets were told, and almost miraculously, her singing voice came back."
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Secret that Keeps You from Singing."
It's amazing the torment that can come from a dark secret. Maybe you know that firsthand. It can, in a sense, keep you from singing, from experiencing all the joy and all the freedom you were created to have. It's even more amazing the release that can come from dealing with the dark secret.
It may be that there is a dark secret or maybe secrets that are tying you up inside. It may be your secret sins, or the sins of someone else. But as long as it's a secret, you're a prisoner. And even though others may not know the dark secrets you carry, they are feeling the effects of those secrets, in your anger, in your depression, or some other way it comes out in your personality. Usually when you continue to store a dark secret, it just continues to multiply the pain and keep you from singing.
Well, our word for today from the Word of God - it's got hope in it, John 8:32, "You will know the truth and the truth will set you free." ow we live like this: "the truth will scare you to death - the truth will ruin you." Jesus said no, it will "Set you free." Like that woman who could no longer sing, you cannot be free until you face and deal with the dark secrets. Jesus goes on to say, "Everyone who sins is a slave to sin, if the son sets you free, you will be free indeed." Jesus is the Liberator from the bondage of our past! And maybe it's time for you to open up your hurting heart to the Liberator for Him to do what only He can do.
If you're going to face the dark secret, you need someone to go with you who will not condemn you, and that would be Jesus. He's known your secret all along. He died to pay for all that sin. He died to forgive it. You need someone who is also strong enough to carry that secret, to heal its wounds, to restore you. Isaiah 53 says of Jesus, "He took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, He was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon Him." That happened on Jesus' cross where every sin and every secret of your life was dealt with and paid for. And today, through these few minutes, Jesus is trying to move in close to you. He's saying, "I'm ready to help you face it, to make you clean, to become your personal Savior." Are you ready to be forgiven and free? To leave all that junk at the foot of Jesus' cross?
Sound like the type of relationship you've been looking for? Then I pray that you will tell Jesus that this day you want to belong to Him. And I hope you will let me send you my booklet Yours For Life. It'll help you get started with Him. It will explain how. You can get in touch with us by going to our website at yoursforlife.net or calling toll free at 1-877-741-1200.
You've been a slave to those secrets long enough, haven't you? Maybe this is your day to finally be free and to finally to sing again.