(This is for all of us who are done with the antics. I could not NOT write this.  Forgive the candor, if it needs forgiving.  I honestly don’t think it does.  Stand and shake a fist with me? :-))

I won’t be silent…

Satan has tried for long enough to keep me quiet. To distract and discourage and discount me. He has brought me down to the depths of despair and the vile darkness that resides there.  

He has thrown curveballs of circumstance and extreme measures of heartache and difficulty and sickness and sin to shut me up.

He has called me “foul” and “unworthy” and “despised” to my face and left me in the heap we call shame.

But now it’s my turn.

And I am calling Bull. Shit.

You are not the victor with your arrogant flag raised in the wind that has knocked me down.

Your ugly, taunting voice, though at times the only sound I can hear, will NOT have the last word.

That vicious, malignant smile that spreads across your face each time I fail will be smacked right back to the pit of hell where it belongs.

Because it seems you have forgotten (as, sadly too often, have I) that I AM NOT YOURS.

The wounds, your bite marks of fear and dread that leave me bleeding, HAVE BEEN HEALED by the One, whose I am.

The scarlet letter you would so love to leave tattooed on my heart, a daily reminder of my sins, HAS BEEN PERMANENTLY REMOVED, by the One, whose I am.

The neon sign whose message reads, “<” , designed with your own hand, HAS BEEN UNPLUGGED and REPLACED, by the One whose I am. HE is “>”.

So stop with your finger pointing, your name calling, your false accusations. They will all serve only to remind me that you are a sore and very insecure loser who is desperately trying to get others to join his losing team.

I belong to Jesus.

I know you remember the cross. Oh, how you hate that symbol and all that happened that day when Jesus died. When He took everything that you represent and took it to that tree with Him. To take its power and kill it. To take its pain and heal it. To take death by the throat and strangle it to life.

And as much as you hate the cross, I know you hate that empty grave even more. Where the proof was in the pudding. That death had been overcome. That life rose with the sun and with the Son on that Sunday morning so long ago.

It declared Jesus the winner.

And you, well, not.

I will sing louder than you can mock, “Jesus loves me, this I know…”

I will walk, run even, when you try to pull me down or trip me up.

Every name you call me will bounce off of me because I wear the name of Jesus as my identity badge.

You might make me cry, but you can’t take my joy, my hope, my love, foreign words in your limited vocabulary.

And even if you were to smite me, you can never truly take my life. 

I’ve got the brand that lasts forever….