“Then you will know the truth and the truth will set you free…If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” ~Jesus (in John 8)

I saw life and freedom and gratitude differently this past Thanksgiving holiday week. And a profound truth sank deep into my heart.

**We cannot know the wonder of true freedom unless we recognize and find release from our imprisonment. And we cannot know the humility and quieting of true gratitude unless we have known the blackest of moments.**

A little over a year ago, I married a dear man who had previously spent over six years in prison. And that criminal sentence was based on a single bad choice, one day’s actions gone south. He was not normally the harmful type. I chose to love him and give him a chance, in part, because I understood that we have all made poor choices, acted cruelly to some degree towards others, and (ultimately) sinned against God so that we deserve time in prison and even death.

Even though I have never been sentenced to prison, that doesn’t mean I have never deserved to be.

The same can rightfully be said of you, dear reader. No matter who you are. That is the truth.

Yet, while my husband has been a prisoner in a brick and morter, big-operation institution, I have been a prisoner of a different kind: one enslaved mentally by fear, pain, hatred, and shame. That is also a truth I cannot deny. And I have found my freedom in no longer wishing to deny it.

This is the Truth to which those previous truths have led us, my dear husband and me. Jesus came to Earth to live and die and rise again so that all criminals and all enslaved ones (read: every human) can be atoned for, made pure before God, when we trust Him and His gift with a promise: that the weighty truth of our absolute need for His covering, sacrifice, mercy, and favor lifts us up to experience and cherish true freedom as is otherwise impossible.

This freedom is not to be a set of temporary political rights flaunted during our earthly life so much as it is a calling to train through the growth-spurts of this earthly life so that we will be fully perfected in the life to come.

Which leads to the second half of that profound truth. True gratitude is borne out of our hearts after they have hit the lowest places, after we having known loneliness, neediness, sorrowfulness…brokenness.

Due to special circumstances and parole-related complications, my husband and I were only able to live together for about one-third of our first year of marriage. Even now, we hopefully long for our situation to change soon, and we can’t wait for this separation to end.

It has, frankly, been a frustrating thing to have our life, in part, dictated by parole officials in other states who have never met me (or, sometimes, have never met my husband either). It has also been a humbling thing.

And…now I see that it has also been a gratitude-forming thing.

For the shaft in the mine is so deep and pitch-dark. But the lump of inky rock we are carrying back into daylight together will be broken open to reveal the hardest, most precious stone. I know it.

Because we may temporarily have to live under these restrictions. But we have held fast and kept faith. And this has made us grateful for a hundred things many other couples would take for granted.

This is also and equally true: embracing the Truth found only in my Jesus is the first step in a longer journey. And through every trial and struggle, He can refine gratitude and goodness in the hearts of those who trust Him.

Oh, what good news to know and remember.

Let us, then, acknowledge our debt, our need, our freedom, and our gratitude today. Not to fate or only to our family members.

But to the source of every good thing and everything worked for our good: the Son.