Do you have pain in your life that is unresolved? Maybe a painful memory, unresolved relationship or self-inflicted wound that seems to be unusually hard to get over?

There are things in our lives that can be absorbing, unresolved and unknown and yet really need the grace of God.

Hebrews 9:23-26 tells us:

Thus it was necessary for the copies of the heavenly things to be purified with these rites, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. For Christ has entered, not into holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf.

Nor was it to offer Himself repeatedly, as the high priest enters the holy places every year with blood not his own, for then He would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. But as it is, He has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself."

In the last verse of Paul Gerhard's hymn "Awake, My Heart with Gladness", we sing, "Now I am safe from evil and sin I love to scorn, for Christ again is free in glorious victory. He who is strong to save has triumphed over the grave!"

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The Rev. Dr. Paul F.M. Zahl is a retired Episcopal minister and author, and served as dean of Cathedral Church of the Advent in Birmingham, Alabama for 10 years. His wife is Mary, and they have 3 grown sons, all serving in ministry. Paul and Mary recently moved back to the Birmingham area.In this season of retirement, Paul is actively waiting on God to send him the work the Lord has him to do, which currently includes mentoring younger ministers, and one-on-one meetings in a ministry of encouragement.

>>You can find Paul's book "Peace in the Last Third of Life - a Handbook of Hope for Boomers" on Amazon here: ⁠https://www.amazon.com/Peace-Last-Third-Life-Handbook/dp/173371667X⁠>>See the complete collection of Paul Zahl's books here: ⁠https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B001HCV1VW/allbooks