This is kind of a thorny chapter, with lots to say on marriage and sexual purity. I think of various friends and their challenging relationships and singleness, but for the most part, nothing really jumped out at me as being a timely word for me right now. 

Then I got to verse 23: “God paid a high price for you, so don’t be enslaved by the world.” 

That one brings tears to my eyes. At times I feel so stuck, so very mired in my negative self-perception—perception that is not biblically based upon what God says about me, but about what I think I look like from the world’s point of view. 

I just turned 50, and that was hard for me. It’s discouraging to not be able to do what I used to be able to do and to know that I’m just going to continue to feel and show my age more and more.

My kids are now young adults, with so much opportunity and possibility in front of them. I hate admitting that mixed in with my pride, joy, and excitement to see what their futures hold, there is envy.  

To be even more painfully transparent, I hate all the weight I’ve gained, and I constantly see myself through that lens, as if it were the only thing that mattered. God and I are working on that, and this verse is a key nugget of truth—Jesus has freed me from bondage. 

I am a new, beautiful creation and beloved daughter. Jesus didn’t do what he did to free me from the bondage to sin and death only to have me keep carrying around the shackles of this world. So this is a great verse for me to memorize and repeat often. And it’s a short one, which is good, because, you know—with age, memory is the second thing to go.