“I would like to share how Keys to Freedom freed me. I was literally covered with guilt, disappointment, shame, and condemnation. I couldn’t see beyond my mistakes. I was stuck. I felt like a pillar of salt, not looking back, just unable to move forward.
I dated a man and then moved in with him. He had been separated from his wife for over five years, but he was basically still married. I became a fornicator and an adulteress. I was in this relationship for four years. During this relationship, I was tormented emotionally, because I knew it was wrong. I disappointed my three children, as I raised them all in church. As a single parent, I was the pillar my children looked up to. I finally did leave the relationship, and never looked back.
However, the guilt, shame, condemnation, and disappointment never left me. It was a dark cloud that followed me and gradually turned into a deep depression. I prayed and went to church and Bible study, but still couldn’t get rid of the dark cloud. I just felt God was not hearing me.
So when I signed up for this study, I came expecting God to do something, as I no longer wanted the depression, condemnation, shame, and guilt. The study talks about transformation. That is what I was anticipating and what I desperately needed every time I came to class. I no longer wanted to be the same person. I desperately wanted transformation, spiritually, and physically. The Lord slowly began working on me.
It was when I heard one specific powerful testimony from the study that I got my breakthrough. When I heard and saw that the Lord had turned her ashes into beauty (Isaiah 61:3), I told myself, “If He could do that for her, then He could do that for me.” I was no longer going to be a spiritual dwarf.
I am no longer that pillar of salt; instead, I can finally move forward without going in circles or walking aimlessly. Moving forward to my destiny (delayed, but not forgotten), I am on my way to becoming the spiritual giant that I long for. All I wanted to do was to go back to the place where I was spiritually before my sin, but I now know that I am not going back to where I was spiritually; instead, I am going to a higher place than before. I have been DELIVERED and set free from depression. It is gone and has been replaced with JOY! Where I could not see before due to the guilt, shame, and condemnation that blinded me, I can now see with spiritual insight. The Lord has done a work in my life and has set me free in many areas. It was time I took off the grave clothes that I have been wearing and that have been weighing me down. I didn’t think I was worthy of His forgiveness, but because of this study, I learned to receive His forgiveness.”