In the grip of lies...

So I believe that I am loved, flaws and all, past and all, by God. By my heavenly Father. There is no doubt in my mind......

....but somewhere in my heart, deeper than I have gone before, God is opening something else up to the light....

So, that is where I left you in my last post.... Now, if you haven't read that post, you do need to go back and read it HERE because this one hinges on that one.

Go on. I'll wait for you...

Ok, read it now?

Good.

Now where to go from here....

Oh yes, I was talking about living in an intimate relationship with Christ as our husband - that being the reconciliation that begins at forgiveness.

My next thoughts in my journal were:

Can I trust Him as my Husband? Is this where I am getting stuck? Trusting Him to love me and not leave me, not abandon me?

Talk about a loaded question!

I mean, I have traveled a long way in these two years of blogging. I have gone through a lot of healing, and a lot of it very transparent here. There are somethings, that for the sake of others I have kept off of the public forum. God has healed those as well.

God has taught me, over and over, how much He loves me. I know He does, and believe it with all my heart...

So I thought, until those words above came flowing out.

I think God is leading me deeper... to a deeper love. I have needed the love of Him as my Father... but now I need to know His deeper, more intimate love.... and trust it too. Know and believe it.

At the end of the sermon, our pastor gave us a time of reflection.

I wrote:

Oh Lord, can You possibly love this? This person that I am when I turn away from Your promptings?

The impression of His answer that I got and wrote down....

Who are you to tell me what to do with My love. I give it to whom I choose. I choose you and will not take it back. I do not love as men love.

How do you even respond to that, except with tears.

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Later a question was asked in our community group time that I am going to ask here.

What keeps you from living with the awareness of God's passionate love for you?

What keeps me from living with that awareness?

• I believe things that are not true.
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• I feel that God is going to do to me what others have - betray me and hurt me in the same ways, reject me and leave me alone in despair.
• 
  
• I believe the lies, wondering if I can really trust Him. Can I really believe, dare I believe what He says? That He is who He says He is, that He will do what He says He will do, that I am who He says that I am?

I need to believe the truth. I need to believe God's truth. I need to trust Him. I know it, but I need it to sink down deeper into my heart.

I am only now really starting to explore all of this. I am only now letting God crack open that door in my heart where I am broken and can't fix me. Where I have been running from.

I don't want to run.
I don't want to just cope.
I don't want to hide from God by doing other things.

I want to trust Him when I am anxious to calm me.
I want to trust Him when I am depressed to save me.
I want to trust Him when I feel empty to fill me.

I want to trust Him to satisfy my every hunger and thirst with Himself, rather than trying to fill myself with worldly pleasures that lead to pain and bondage... even if they are "harmless."

I don't want find myself waking up with regret in the morning because I indulged the night before.

The enemy is trying to rob me of the joy of the Lord which is my strength. He wants me to believe the lie that I can't trust God to keep loving me when I do wrong and hurt His heart.

That's really what it is. I have done some things that I know God is asking me not to. And guess what? I feel guilty. I will be doing them and even say out loud, "God I know you don't want me to do this, and I'm sorry. I already feel guilty." But in my pride and arrogance, stubbornness and willfulness, I keep on doing whatever it is.

Then I question myself later, and wonder how He could still possibly love me, when I totally stiff arm Him like that?

So I continue to run, because I don't want to see the dying embers of a Husband's love for me, flicker and go out.

I thought I believed beyond a shadow of a doubt that God loved me, flaws and all, past and present and future. I really did.

But it seems that there is more deep down, a hurt deep down that I haven't let God's love fully invade.

Here is my final prayer from my journal, from Sunday.

I need Your unconditional, passionate, crazy love to touch my heart in a deeper way than before. To loosen the grip of the lie.

The lie that I am not worth anything - that I am an object to be betrayed - that You will withdraw Your love from me - that You will take your hand off me.

Oh Lord, this hurts to look at. Yet there it is. There I am. It's ugly. The lie is ugly... and knowing its there, after all this time.... that I still believe that somewhere inside..... after all the hard work I have done.... after all the healing God has done.....

When God has proven Himself over and over to me, that He will never leave me nor forsake me, why do I still doubt Him? How can I allow the enemy in there so easily? Why is it so easy for me to surrender sacred ground, rather than stand and fight for it?!

I feel like such a fool when all God is doing is asking for another piece of my heart to heal back into the whole... and I am clenching it, while my hands are being cut to ribbons by it. I'm bleeding all over the place, and am trying to pretend that there is nothing wrong, when it's very obvious that something is terribly wrong.

I need to spend these last few minutes I have alone for the night with my Jesus, who wants me to come sit in His lap.

If you didn't read the link just above, about my heart, read it HERE. Because I need to remember that healing, and the truth in that, rather than the lie that is beating me down and holding me back.

If I can just let go and surrender to God.
Be broken before him.

I am broken inside.
Broken before Him is the only way I will be healed.