Alan D. Wright - Free Yourself, Be Yourself: Find the Power to Escape Your Past

To my children:
May you soar to great heights
in the certainty of my love,
never in search of it.

For Abigail,
her fathers joy:
I love you more than a million
Ghirardelli hot fudge sundaes.

and

For Bennett,
his fathers blessing:
I love your sixty-yard sand wedge hole outs,
art masterpieces, and excellent schoolwork.
But I love youjust youa million times more.

M y thanks to:

Anne, my love. Arent we blessed that, instead of my shame snuffing you out, your grace lit me up? Thanks for the depth of love that comes with two decades of marriage and for blessing me to write another book.

Jim Glasgow, Pastor Gem. When, upon completion of your doctorate in ministry so many years ago, your child retorted to a friend, My dad is a doctor, but not the kind that can help anybody, she was wrong. Youve doctored my soul a thousand times. Youre one of the best doctors in the world and I love you.

Mickey Thigpen. Im pretty sure Id lay my life down for you. Im positive youve already laid yours down for me. Its not your intelligence, your work ethic, your theological insight, your humor, or your skill at running the church that I love about you mostits your heart.

Katherine Currie. You are extraordinary. Ordinary people would become self-absorbed in your circumstances, but you have not turned inward with anxietyyou have turned outward with love. Thanks for giving Alan Wright Ministries the time that you did not have so that more people could discover Gods love.

Bob Roach. Elder, pilot, mentor, friend, brother, promoter, planner, giver, and, when needed, rump kicker. Thanks for having the skill to fly this message around the nation, but thanks more for having the heart.

Reynolda elders. Your partnership in the gospel is a delight.

Pastors Prayer Partners. As God breathes out blessing upon those who read these pages, its because He first breathed in the incense of your intercession.

Reynolda Presbyterian Church. Oh, your hunger for the Word! Every weekend I feel like a grandmother smiling to see her Thanksgiving feast gobbled up by her hungry family.

Dudley Hall. The reason I had to write this book is because I couldnt package up you and send you to bookstores around the world. Whatever good can be read in these pages can already be seen more clearly in your life. Thanks so much for spiritually fathering me.

Don Jacobson. Phone calls with you are not chats, they are God moments. Thanks for letting me partner with Multnomah again.

Larry Libby. Man, youve got style! Thanks for capturing my heart and helping it beat more vividly on these pages.

A ll of us have a history, and all of us have a future. We cannot change the past, but we can create our future. For most of us, our past is a mixed bagsome good memories and some painful memories. We have made some wise choices and some poor choices. We have been treated kindly by some people and have been abused by others. The experiences of the past speak to us every day. Some days, we hear, Youre appreciated; you made the right decision; you have many friends and great potential. Other days, we hear, No one loves you; you are a loser; you will never amount to anything; you have no future.

How we respond to these voices from the past will determine our future. As a counselor, I have listened as people have told me of their distressing past. They speak of verbal, physical, and sexual abuse. They feel hurt, anger, and shame. On the one hand, they blame the people who hurt them, and on the other hand, they wallow in self-condemnation. Some have lived in the bondage of resentment and have sought to take revenge on those who have hurt them. The road of revenge has led some to atrocious acts of violence in an effort to make them pay for their wrongs. Others have turned their anger toward themselves. They blame themselves for all that has happened to them. They dress themselves in cloaks of shame and live behind emotional sunglasses, afraid to let anyone know who they really are. They reason that No one would love me if they really knew me.

We were not created to live under cloaks of shame. The wonderful message from God is that He loves us and wants to heal our past, put His Spirit within us, and lead us into a fruitful future. With those who have sinned against us, God will be the judge. He is committed to justice and mercy. If they repent, God will forgive them. If they do not repent, God will judge them. We can release them and our hurt and anger into the hands of a loving and just God. We can breathe deeply and walk into the future freed from the pain of the past.

If you have pronounced judgment upon yourself for past failures or abuses, and imposed the sentence of misery upon your soul, God reminds you that Christ has already paid your penalty. You are free to walk out of jail and experience the freedom of release. The sun is shining. The flowers are blooming. You are free to enjoy the beauty of walking with God.

In this book, Alan Wright will share with you the details of how to experience freedom from shame and how to release your enemies to God. What you are about to read will show you how to free yourself to be yourself. God made you in His image. That image will be revealed as you lay aside the clothes of self-condemnation and blame and put on the clothes of forgiveness, kindness, and love. I predict that as you read and apply the principles in this book, you will discover your true selfthe person God made you to be.

And I think youre going to love the person you discover.

G ARY C HAPMAN , author of The Five Love Languages and Love as a Way of Life

T oday is the anniversary of Saddam Husseins execution.

Not so very long ago, his birthday was the most celebrated day on the Iraqi calendar. Now, however, the ousted, humbled, and imprisoned dictator has been tried, sentenced, and hung by the judicial system of a liberated and democratic Iraq. For several years, there has been no summoning of the citizenry to the mandatory birthday festivities.

With the former Baathist strongmans execution for crimes against humanity, more and more Iraqi citizens have come forward with tales of cruelty and torture at the hands of the former regime.

For some reason, the stories from the Iraqi national soccer team grieved me more than the rest. Once the athletes were speaking freely, we learned that they were severely punished if they didnt win. Before each game, Uday, Saddams elder son, would call the team captain with threats of imprisonmentor worseif they lost.

The players would start crying, said Emmanuel Baba, a team member. They would tremble with fear.

Players told of being flogged, imprisoned, and put to forced labor in the wake of losing important games. They dared not quit the team for fear of being executed. One of the star players, Laith Hussein, confessed: I thought many times of leaving soccer, but how could I? I was afraid of what Uday would do to me and my family. I would sit and cry when I was by myself. I want to play soccer for myself and the Iraqi people, not for Uday.

The soccer players testimonies grip me so painfully because, in the first place, their suffering was linked to a game. A