Free Lord! Am I Free

“’Tis fifteen years ago since I found peace, sir!”

So replied a happy looking woman, when asked, “Have you peace with God?”

“How did that come about?”

“’Twas thro’ death, sir! Through a neighbour dying. She lived in the cottage next to mine, and when she was taken bad, I used to go in day after day to do for her a bit, and as she got worse, I thought, ‘However should I do, if I had to die without God?’ She died as she lived, in the dark.

“Well, sir! day after day I got more and more miserable, until one day a voice seemed to say to me, ‘Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.’” That was a dunner for me, and made me feel worse than ever.

“At last I could bear it no longer, sir, and up I went into my bedroom, and I could show you the very boards I knelt on, sir! I went up in my room, and there I knelt down and I asked the Lord to give me peace.”

Reader, the one of whom I write took her true place as a poor, ruined, helpless sinner, “without strength, ‘ungodly,’” and her cry went up to the Lord. Blessed is the promise for all such, for it is written “whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved” (Rom. 10:13; see Luke 23:39-43).

Her eye turned from looking in upon self, and she looked out to Christ—that blessed One, who once was lifted up on the cross—who now is lifted up on the throne, and peace and joy filled her heart as she thought of him who once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust.

But to continue in her own words:

“Well, sir! then a voice seemed to say to me, ‘Thy chains are broken, thou art free.’ I jumped to my feet and said, ‘Free Lord, am I free?’ and so joyful was I that I think you would have thought me mad had you seen me then.

“Off I went and told my neighbours, for I couldn’t keep it to myself, sir! They only made a laugh at me, but that didn’t trouble me—and then, sir! I couldn’t wait until my husband came home to his dinner—I had to go and tell him at once, for I could not keep it in, and I don’t think, sir,—Do you?—that people can hold in the good news.

“Yes, now believing I have peace with God, and then, besides, there is no condemnation to those in Christ Jesus.”

Such, dear reader, was the story of this simple country woman. Say, are you afraid of death as she once was? Would you die in the dark as her neighbour did? Remember, except you repent—you will perish.

To anxious ones I would say—look from yourselves altogether; the Lord says, “Look unto Me, and be ye saved.”

Believing ones, who are “keeping in” the good news, I entreat you to spread far and wide the joyful Gospel news, for it is a day of good tidings, and you do not well to hold your peace.

I.Fleming

Scattered Seed 1885, p. 60