I love words. I take the responsibility of using them very seriously. Words can bring life or death, freedom or captivity, healing or pain. I try to submit my spoken and written words under the authority of the Holy Spirit. I don’t want to wound someone with my words. My artistic medium is not drawing or sculpting or dancing…..it’s words.

I especially love the evocative nature of the words I absorb in Scripture. There are several words and phrases in Isaiah 61:1 that nurture and echo through my soul. Proclaim is used twice in this verse…..proclaiming good news and proclaiming freedom. I love the power and authority that come from a holy proclamation. For me, being called to proclaim His good news and His freedom means speaking bold truth and declaring life where only lies and brokenness had once existed.

The other words and phrases I love from this verse all seem to merge in my heart: “bind up the brokenhearted”, “freedom for the captives”, and “release from darkness for the prisoners”. Everywhere I go I see and meet people in broken captivity. The enemy has convinced too many people that their prison cell has a secure lock on it and their lot in life (and yes, I mean Christians) is as good as it is going to be. I will declare and proclaim all my days the truth that Jesus has destroyed every lock on every believer’s prison cell and if we would have the audacity to walk out of the shadows and into the front of that cell we would see that there isn’t even a door there. Freedom is real. I live it each and every day.

“It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.” -Galatians 5:1 NIV