rebuilding

It seems to me that this day of bible study homework should have been ravishing to my soul. (Dramatic, I know, but I am making a point.) It wasn't. I have been there. I have experienced those things. I have experienced the sin that follows years of a bothered mind and tainted childhood. But now there was no shame or agony. I could think of reasons why there should be, but it is gone. I hope and think that this is a testimony that I have been healed of these things. When it no longer rocks your existence. When it no longer shouts out that you are that evil and stuck with it forever. I am better in this area. I am seeing myself as free. And thanks to a talk with a friend yesterday, the tail end of it all is breaking off too. The remnants of destruction.
I told my husband the other day that this year was going to be good. Last year was a year of stripping off and this would be a year of change. "A rebuilding," he said. It made me laugh and then made me want to cry. He didn't even know that this was the theme of our study. The theme of this year. Was he looking over my shoulder as I read the words that came from this verse: They will rebuild the ancient ruins and restore the places long devastated; they will renew the ruined cities that have been devastated for generations. ~Isaiah 61:4. And this was confirmed again as my friend sent me a book about homeschooling of which the first page had this very verse. She didn't know either.
What did make me come to tears was the last part of our study. A pre-written prayer. A testament that you put yourself in. A promise that God gives to all of us.... I have a plan for you..... Let me perfect you. It seems to me that all the dreams that I have had, the plans made in my youth, did not turn out. But it is occurring in my heart, that He has a greater plan. More than I could have imagined. That's why He is God. We cannot even fathom his thoughts, his good plans towards us. Us. Me, even. I could have wound up a Christian wife, still bound in my pain, struggling with a man still bound in his, and living a mundane life. I have never believed in living a mundane or "just because" life. I have always thought that God has a purpose for us and that we don't have to settle for the ordinary. We can be extraordinary people. Somehow I had believed that it was too late and I would just have to carry on from here. But God had bigger plans. I will get to be whole. I will not have to settle or sit in my consequence. It was all in the plan. The life that I live now causes me to strive harder because I have to hold up my end. It causes me to see more of the other side because I am surrounded by it in so many ways. It makes my choices that much more important because they have purpose. I won't get stuck (hopefully ever) in the same old. I choose to be changed and be a catalyst for generations to come. In my weakness He is strong. I am so thankful for that. Romans 8:1,2~ Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death.