The Chrysalis
In the stillness of confinement, transformation begins—where surrender gives way to renewal and a new man emerges in Christ.
By Steve Wilkins
Immersed in His Word.
Countless hours alone with my thoughts.
Faced with the ugly image staring back at me
from the polished metal mirror in a cramped jail cell.
I couldn’t believe how far away from the image of God I had allowed myself to wander.
I came to hate the man I had become.
Not because of the price I was paying,
but because of the amazing gifts that God had already given me
and the overwhelming magnitude of the gifts that He promised.
I was reminded daily of the man God had created and called me to be.
But that was not the man I saw in the mirror.
Day after day I laid my heart open before my Heavenly Father.
I confessed that I was not the man I knew I was supposed to be.
And day by day, chapter by chapter, He created within me a clean heart.
A new heart.
He gathered the broken pieces of the life that I had shattered
and rearranged them into a man who wanted nothing more
than to live to glorify God.
“Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.” —2 Corinthians 5:17
I now see a new man in that mirror.
All Scripture quotations are from the New American Standard Bible (NASB), unless otherwise noted.
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