Hearing His voice...

One of the benefits of counseling with Tricia has been learning to listen for and recognize God’s voice.

It seems weird that it took counseling for me to really hear that. You would think that counseling is all about talking. My talking to her, and her responding, teaching, etc. But it was more than that. There were times when things that she said really resonated within me, or pricked my heart. Those were times when I knew God was speaking to me, using Tricia’s voice.

But then there were those other times. I noticed them happen especially when we were doing the EMDR therapy. We went through the therapy in sets, in between which, we would talk briefly and then have another quiet set. It was during those times of quiet that I really noticed something happening. I would end up starting to have a conversation in my head. In reality, I realized I was focusing my questions and concerns at God. I was focusing on the hurts that we were working through, but when I opened myself up to God, silently asking Him to show me lies, when I cooperated with the process, He really did open up things more quickly for me and show me things that I was believing.

Usually by the end of a session, Tricia would have given me encouragement and prayed through the sets for me… and there was something else. Usually near the end, as I would start getting to a point of needed to get the lies replaced, God would really start to speak to me. Not really in a voice, but sometimes giving me an image to focus on (like where He held my heart in His hands and was healing it) or by giving me a song that spoke right into where I was at, or by speaking right into my head. I know it sounds strange. But scripture phrases would “randomly” come into my head, in the silence. Truth based on scripture would come into my head, not exactly in my own voice… I wish I knew how to better explain it. I just know that when I would share with Tricia what impressions I got, or what I saw or heard, she was able to help me discern what was truth and what wasn’t. I was able to figure out from that the difference between God’s whisper, and the enemy’s shout.

It seems crazy that I wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between a whisper and a shout. But when you have been listening to the shouting for so long, your ears tend to be ringing so bad that you can’t hear the whispers.

Besides, when I was hearing the lies, I was unsettled in my soul, my heart was upset, and physically I felt sick. When I was hearing God’s whisper into my heart and soul, I was at peace. I was able to let out the hurtful emotions and feel renewed, though exhausted, at the end.

Now I have found at least one place that I am able to be still enough to hear God. That is the coffee shop that I frequent. Now my hope is to find a way or a place to have a “retreat” at home as well. I just want to have a place where I can get away from the kids, my husband and not feel like I am in the way of anyone. However our house is so small that there really is no place for me to go.

I want to have it before I finish counseling. My next counseling session is the first week of December, and it will probably be my last one… if everything goes well. So I want to be able to have a place besides the coffee shop and Tricia’s office as a place of retreat!

I guess that would be a prayer request I have then. That I will be able to find a place. I know that God can meet me anywhere, and He has. I just know that I need to have a place I can run to when I need the quiet and concentrated time with my Lord. I want to continue to change and grow as He continues to lead me on in healing and wholeness. I know I will never get all the way there in this world. But I want to have Him as my focus.

When that happens, well, then it is like Cindy said… I look to her, like a completely different person than I was when she met me a year and half ago.

I change from the inside out… and I want that inside to be Christ alone, not the lies or the problems I have had in the past. Just Him. Nothing more; nothing less.