By Joyce Starr Macias

LuAnne was a prisoner of the “once-you’ve-beens.” She was so shackled by yesterday’s painful experiences that she could scarcely hobble through today.

One lunch she and I were in the employees’ lounge looking out at a busy intersection.

LuAnne shuddered as she watched a young woman on foot zigzagging her way through traffic.

“Look at that. Why do people always cross against the light out there?” she sputtered. “I guess I’m as guilty as the rest,” I confessed. “The walk light sequence is so slow I often just look for a break and run.”

“Well, I’m just plain terrified every day to cross that street,” she sighed. “Once you’ve been hit by a car, you’re left with a terrible fear of crossing streets. You’d understand if you had been hit as I was,” she insisted.

As she turned away from the window there was no doubt in my mind of the reality and intensity of LuAnne’s fears. Yet her accident had happened eight years before, and she was left with no permanent physical injury. Why the deep emotional scars? Did other people have similar scars?

I began to listen more sharply to conversations around me, and soon another example surfaced. This time though, it was the “once-you’ve-had” syndrome that appeared.

A middle-aged woman slouched through the double doors of the lounge, shoulders slumped, dragging herself toward the couch. She sat down wearily, then looked up at me and said, “I am so exhausted I could just collapse. You know, once you’ve had abdominal surgery, you’re never the same again. You’re always tired.” This was another set of shackles, heavy enough to make an apparently healthy woman drag through life.

Earlier in the day, I had heard her talking with a secretary about a late movie she had watched the night before. But she did not blame the late bedtime for her exhaustion. It was the surgery half-a-dozen years ago!

These women were prisoner’s of their past. They were the very opposite of what we are meant to be in Christ. John 8:32 tells us, “And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” Jesus is truth, the one who sets us free from our past and gives us hope for the future.

“Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage” (Galatians 5:1). The Bible is filled with references to freedom, to resting in the Lord, and living in perfect peace because our minds are now focused, not on fear and past circumstances, but on Jesus Christ.

Psychosomatic illness does exist, of course, and symptoms caused by an emotionally induced illness can be just as painful and aggravating as any stirred up by a physical cause. And excessive fear can drain energy faster than water can flow through a sieve.

These women were coping with very real problems in the best way they knew. Fear and exhaustion were such a part of life for them that they had accepted these feelings as normal and permanent. They had not yet come to know that Jesus could set them free.

But sadly, too many Christians today find themselves victims of similar defeats. The stress of today’s pressure-cooker society accounts for much of it.

What we do have going for us is the knowledge that Jesus Christ offers us peace and rest if we will only accept it.

God is working out His plan for us all like a gigantic tapestry. He is a good God in whom we can relax, trusting Him to work out His perfect will in our lives.

Our part is to recognize His goodness and His unbounding love for us, to stay in tune with Him through daily prayer, communion, and Bible study, allowing Him to lead.

“Once-you’ve-had” the experience of being born again and cleansed by the blood of Jesus, life will take on new exciting dimensions.

“Once-you’ve-been” convinced that He can really take care of you, no matter what, you will become truly free for the first time in your life. Whatever has happened to you, let the past pass away, and accept freedom in Jesus Christ. “If the Son therefore shall make you free, you shall be free indeed”(John 8:36).

Joyce Starr Macias is a free lance writer and retired Newspaper reporter. She enjoys writing about her personal walk with God.