My journey, a poem...

This past weekend I was sitting at my desk, watching the grey skies, and the rain.

It was cold and breezy, and a perfect day to snuggle up with a blanket, a book and a hot mug of coffee.

I was catching up on my blog reading, and thinking about my past post about anger. as I sat there and thought, some phrases kept coming into my head. I just couldn’t get them out.

So finally I started writing. In about a half hour, maybe a bit more, I had the following poem all written out. I thought I would leave it here for you all to read. Another “Dancing in the streets” thing, I think. Another reason to “Greatly Rejoice.”

My Journey

In the depths of disillusionment and despair,
From the cell of my own making,
I looked up, and I saw Him there.

Wrapped in light and looking down at me
He whispered into my heart
“Do you want to be set free?”

I trembled as I started to imagine what might be;
“How do I answer that question?
The possibilities are endless, if I were really free.”

The choices to make, of which way to go;
The wide open, green plains
Or the mountains capped with snow?

I started to shake even more,
The possibilities dazzled me,
Filled me with fear to my very core.

For my cell was all I knew.
Despair covered me,
As away from that light I drew.

“How can I be free?”
I whispered, “I know what I did!
I know what was done to me!”

He answered me, as I began to cry;
“So do I, my child,
“That’s why I sent My Son to die.”

“I have tried and tried,
“But I can’t,” I sobbed,
“I can’t leave the pain to which I’m tied.”

Then I felt His gentle hand
Untie the cords
And help me to stand.

He lifted me up, into His light.
I couldn’t resist Him,
I didn’t even try to fight.

The pain was intense, in His hold.
But I knew He was healing me,
Without needing to be told.

All the old flesh was stripped away,
As we drew closer
To the bright fresh light of day.

As I began to see more clearly,
“I’m angry!” I cried.
“Why did You let all these things inside?”

“To help you to trust Me,”
He said with such love.
“And to purify your faith in the One up above.”

“To draw you closer to my Son,
Jesus, who died
So we could be one.”

“To teach you to reach out to
The One called alongside,
My Holy Spirit who will never hide.”

My breath caught in my throat and my voice was stilled.
I realized I had a choice.
Would I with bitterness always be filled?

Everything in me shook as I turned.
Would I see disappointment
And from Him be spurned?

But instead of what I feared to see,
I found love and acceptance,
And all He hoped me to be.

To be healed, cleansed, free and whole.
To reach out to others.
To bring light to another dark soul.

Wrapped in His love, I have one mission.
To be a healed helper
With only Him to fill my vision.

By Heather Kudla 09-13-08

"Greatly Rejoice..." Part 1

This has been a long week. But a good one.

My pastor’s sermon this week was really good. He is working us through a sermon series on 1 and 2 Peter. He is in the first chapter of 1 Peter.

This past week he was talking about the things God has done for us just in the first few verses.

Peter first praised God then reminded us of the things that He has done:
• He showed us great mercy
• He gave us new birth
• into a living hope
• into an inheritance; one that will never perish, spoil or fade
• the inheritance is kept for us in heaven

Then Peter told us that through our faith, God shields us with His power. Can you believe that our faith in god activates His power to protect us? The same power that raised Christ from the dead, that power God uses to shield us, according to our faith in Him.

The other verses that hit me follow:
“In these you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith - of greater worth than gold, which perishes though refined by fire - may be proved genuine and result in praise, glory, and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.”
1 Peter 1:6-7

I can identify with having to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. I suppose if you have read my blog, you can tell the sufferings. I have talked about them so frequently. But the victories. I try to share them as well, but so many times I find myself focusing on my struggles, the things I am working through and trying to do. I end up not always showing what God is doing. I forget to “greatly rejoice.”

What am I supposed to “greatly rejoice” in? God’s mercy, the new birth I have been given, living hope, glorious inheritance, and even my faith.

This brings up a bit of a tangent. Forgive me as I pursue it.

So many times in my post I have ask a question like “Do I believe…? If I… then I HAVE TO.” Or like above I say, “I am supposed to…” I don’t HAVE to believe any thing. It is a free choice. I want to greatly rejoice in all these things God has done. It is hard. I get tired. I get frustrated. But at the same time I really want to keep this list of the things He has done for me in my head. I have pretty much memorized verses 3-9 out of the first chapter of Peter.

Every time I find myself starting to lose focus, to allow myself to look at things with the wrong focus, I don’t look at the things of my faith as a choice. I end up putting pressure on myself. I say that I have to believe, or I have to do, or I have to trust. God doesn’t force me to do anything. All He wants is to place the choice in front of me to trust Him or not. To love Him or not. It’s about my free will to choose. He doesn’t want robots who are programed to do the right thing. Because then they are doing those things because they are “forced” to, not out of love for their Father.

God has given me these things because He so wants a relationship with me. He wants a relationship with all of us. I want to always greatly rejoice in just that alone! He wants relationship! That isn’t something you can force with someone. Have you ever tried to be friends with someone who doesn’t want to be friends with you? Or tried to talk with someone who wasn’t interested in even talking? It is really difficult and it hurts.

We are supposed to love God, greatly rejoice in all He has given us, have faith in Him, trust Him, etc. But that is our free choice to do so.

I am making the choice to greatly rejoice.

So, back to my original thought.

If I greatly rejoice in the things that God does for me, that He has done for me, it changes my focus from my problems, to His gifts and victories. Even when I am suffering grief in trials, I will still rejoice. Through these sufferings my faith is being proved genuine… refined by fire, just like gold.

I think that our faith is so precious to God, of such great worth, that He wants to refine it, purify it, help it to become more genuine, to gain strength so that it will bring praise, glory and honor when Jesus is revealed. Even one of the people coming to Jesus for healing for someone said “I believe Lord, help my unbelief.” He chose to believe, but needed God to strengthen his faith.

Through all the times I have gone through, I have been really growing. As hard and painful as it has been to process through the past hurts in my life, and allow myself to grieve through them, this process has strengthened my faith.

Even when I feel like I have been faltering and going backwards, God has shown me that He has been “proving my faith genuine.” He has given me a deeper faith, and greater trust in Him.
Now that is something to greatly rejoice in!

“Though you have not see Him, you love Him; and even though you do not see Him now, you believe in Him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls.”
1 Peter 1:8-9

I do love Him. I do believe in Him. In a deeper way than I ever have before. The more I think about what He has done, what He is doing, and what He is going to do in my life, the more I am filled with that joy. His joy. He is helping me to reach the goal, he has given me salvation, and is working it out in my life… the salvation of my soul.

I know there is more for me to work through right now. I know that I have to work through my anger at Him, but the process is started. I have to work through some other hurts in my life, but the process is started. I have to combat some more lies, but the process is started. I am saying “have to” here, because these are choices I have made. I have made the choice to continue in the healing process that God has started. I want to.

I want to see my faith grow, my trust grow, my hope grow.

All of this will happen as I continue to follow God through the trials.

I can say that I am grateful for the trials, because they will strengthen my faith and my trust in God. As they strengthen, I will be able to rejoice more and more. There will be more chances to “dance in the streets,” and bring praise and honor and glory to the only One worthy of it… my Jesus who has brought me through the fiery trials.

Anger, healing, and my God...

I’m angry.

Angry at God.

There.
I said it.

And it looks just as bad as I thought it would.

As I went through that awful experience… as he was hurting me, as I was trapped and helpless, with no voice and nowhere to go… in my head, I was screaming, over and over, “God help me!!!” And He didn’t. Here He is, fully aware of every situation. Fully able to act in everything. Yet, He chose not to act. He chose to let me go through that.

I know that there probably is a reason. I know that He will end up using this for good somehow. I know that He will heal me. I know that I may never know why I had to endure that. I know that I had free will walking into that situation. I know that guy had free will too, and I was affected by that.

But God could have stopped it. He didn’t.

Tricia said that though God didn’t answer my desperate plea that night, He is answering it now. It wasn’t in my timing, but His. He is helping me now. He was with me then, whether I knew it or not, and He is helping me now, whether I feel it or not.

I have to believe that.

Or I am going to go crazy. I am going to drive myself crazy with trying to deal with feelings that aren’t lining up with the truth. I have to start believing the truth.

…or I will start living a lie…
…that my God isn’t big enough…

If I just give those words lip service; if I don’t believe that He was there, saw it all, saw the wounds it was making, caused me to forget it till I could deal with it, and is walking me through it now; I start putting God into a box of someone who is uncaring, willing to act at random, and unpredictable in his showing love for me vs. wrath towards me. I make Him into a god who is not the all powerful, loving, faithful God that I know He is.

I have to believe that He was there. I have to believe, though no one else heard a sound…

*My God heard the screaming in my head.
*My God wept with me as I tried to hide the hurt, and terror as I later lay on the bed.
*My God saw me go into the bathroom and try to clean myself up and pull myself back together… unable to look in the mirror.
*My God held me the next few days as I ached from the violence of it all, and woke up shaking, sick from nightmares.
*My God stayed by me as, with His help, I carefully constructed a thick-walled room to completely block myself from remembering that rape.
*My God was with me 2 1/2 years ago while a friend prayed with me on the phone, and I felt His Presence with me, telling me that He accepted me… accepted me because I am beautiful and precious to Him, that He loves me and I am His.
*My God was with me 2 days later as I remembered this rape for the first time in ten years.
*My God has been with me as I have started to walk through processing this, and getting the pain and poison out of the wound.

He is opening the deep wound, cutting away the dead, scarred tissue. He is cleaning it out, and dressing it and wrapping it with a bandage. And at each appointment in His office, He is opening up the bandage again, cleaning it out some more, taking out more of the infection, re-dressing it, and re-bandaging it.

It hurts each time He exposes it to the air. It smells of rottenness and poison.

And the pain…
oh the pain is beyond describing…
only groans, too deep for words to express, can even begin to tell of the pain inside…
pain that is starting to come out with gut wrenching moans and cries…
pain that I am finally allowing myself to mourn, to grieve, to sob over.

My God, my Healer, brings me back time and again to His office. He uses my counselor, Tricia, in that office. She becomes my God’s gentle hands, touching, guiding and moving me to a place where I am able to deal with the pain. She becomes my God’s quiet voice, talking me through everything He is doing. Through her, He opens up that wound as much as I can bear for that visit to His office.

*He gives Tricia the wisdom, insight, and discernment she needs to be His hands and voice to me.
*He gives me the strength, courage, and desire to sit and cooperate in His cleansing and healing.

I leave that office exhausted. I leave it many times shaking with nearly overwhelming pain and a sick feeling in my stomach. But I leave it with a strong hug and encouragement from my counselor. I leave Tricia behind as I walk out of the office, but I never leave my Great Physician behind. I know that my God is walking out of there with me, getting me home safely, caring for me as I try to carry on with my normal, everyday living.

I still don’t know the reason I have had to go through this. To be honest, the answers that He will use this to help someone else, or strengthen me, or that He will work all this for the good, really don’t satisfy right now. Even if they are true.

To say that this experience, even the process of healing, has formed me into who I am today, that I can accept… but much more than that right now, I don’t know.

I am still in process.

I am still in the midst of grieving what was done to me. I am still mourning the bad choices I made. I am still in the process of forgiving him… of forgiving myself… of accepting the grace and forgiveness that God is extending to me.

I am still angry with God. I found myself at our family group today. I shared a bit of what I have shared here, about being angry with God. I shared a bit of the experience I went through. I also shared that I was finding it very hard to admit that I am angry at God for allowing this… because I can’t be mad at God… but I am.

As we entered into a time of prayer, almost as soon as we quieted ourselves, I felt myself turning to God and nearly yelling at Him, “I am so angry at You. It hurt so much! I am furious You let this happen!” And then I collapsed sobbing into His arms.

The image, and the nearly physical feeling I had, was of seeing a parent holding their child, loving on them, while the child is so angry that she is beating against her parent’s chest with her little fists… unable to hurt her parent, unable to get out of that loving embrace… and finally the child stops resisting the hug, and falls to sobbing in the safety of her parent’s love.

I am that child I saw as we prayed.
I am still angry.
I am still crying.
I am still confused.
I am still hurt.
But:
I am still healing.
And:
I am still in His arms.

Perfectionism and good enough...

Ok, I said in my last post that we didn’t hit things too hard in counseling. But maybe that’s wrong. We did hit things hard, in that we talked about lots of things. We ranged all over, from my telling Tricia about the more recent lies I realized I have been believing, to how things are going at home, to, well, just about everything…

This week has been hard as well. I have been holding myself together the best I can. I have been fighting a bad (and I mean, it hurts to breathe, bad) cold. I am exhausted. My son has started pre-school for the first time. My daughter wants to go too. Neither of them want to sleep for a nap when they are home. On top of that, there are multiple things I am trying to deal with in counseling.

AND…

I am a perfectionist.

Yeah, if you haven’t guessed it (or if I haven’t mentioned it before) I really am a perfectionist. To the point of insanity sometimes. If you came in my house, you would never guess that. I could show you a picture here of what my living room and kitchen look like, but I want to show you a “Better Homes and Gardens” type of kitchen and living room… and, well, that ain’t gonna happen in these parts!!!!

One of the things I talked over with Tricia is that I don’t bother worrying about how perfect my house is, because I “know” that I can’t make it perfect, so why bother trying. She told me that is a common problem with perfectionists. If they feel they can’t do it right, and right the first time, they don’t even try. Because failing at something is even worse than not doing it in the first place.

I don’t like failing.

Maybe that comes into play in my counseling. When I feel like I don’t get anywhere, or accomplish anything in a session, I come away with frustration, because I feel like I failed, I feel like I didn’t “do” it well enough. I feel that I have to try to do this on my own. I have to heal. So, if something doesn’t seem to “work,” well, then I didn’t do something right. That’s when I start over analyzing everything.

Including being a wife.

I look at how I have been as a wife to Dave. I pick myself apart for ways I could have listened to him better, ways I could have lifted him up better, or encouraged him better, made our house more like a home and less like just a place to stop and sleep.

Including being a mother.

I start worrying about whether I am doing a good job raising the kids, looking at the things that I have done recently, or not done, and see where I could have done better. I worry about whether I can help raise them to know and love God. I wonder if I really am doing them any good at all.

Including my writing.

I end up starting to write, and then delete things, because my posts are going every which way, or they don’t have a point, or they can’t possibly have any spiritual value to anyone, or they are just talking about the same old stuff again and again… and on the list goes.
Tricia knows most of this. We have talked about it many times before.

So this perfectionist tendency came up when we were discussing a book I was reading “Healing for Damaged Emotions,” by David A. Seamands. He talked about many things in there and one of them is perfectionism, sources and symptoms, ways of healing and being real about who you are.
So we talked about my being a perfectionist. (If you could only the contortions I go through at times to make this blog look the way I want it to!)

Tricia gave me a phrase that ended up being the theme for our whole session… it carried through to everything we talked about.

“Good Enough.”
Period.
Stand Alone.
That’s it.

Well, you can imagine my mind doing back flips. Especially when I hear the phrase with a negative connotation. Because, for so long, I have heard in my head, “I am not good enough.” So, anything that I do, it’s good enough, but…. It’s not the best, it could have been better, I didn’t give it enough effort, so it’s settling for second rate, second class, second place.

Then one of the ways she explained is this:
“It is GOOD and God is ENOUGH.”

That is better, and I can’t deny that God is enough, but I am still struggling with the negative connotations. Tricia asked me to keep this phrase in mind this week. To be honest, I haven’t. Even that night after counseling it was gone from my mind. I beat myself up because I was so tired when I got home, that even though I got a homemade, baked chicken dinner on the table, including home-made gravy, I didn’t manage to make the cornbread that I had intended.

I wanted a “perfect” meal for the ending of Peter’s first day of school. I didn’t get all the items made I wanted because I was too tired. Which is not an excuse for a perfectionist. So, therefore, I failed.

Looking back, I can see now that the meal was good. There was enough food. The kids enjoyed it, even though it took a bit longer to cook than I wanted. It was fine, but I was so tired and disappointed with myself, that I didn’t hardly feel like eating.

That is one example of where, if I had remembered in the middle of it all, that it’s good enough… I might have saved myself a lot of heartache.

Now, I need to refocus on this for the rest of the week. I am sick. I feel miserable. There are going to be only so many things that I can do, just because of my energy level. I am only going to be able to do so much for the kids. I am only going to be able to do so much for my husband. I am only going to be able to fold the loads of laundry that my energy allows. I am only going to be able to pull together light meals, that are easy to prepare.

It will be GOOD.

I may be able to spend only a little bit of time with God each day until my time alone right before counseling on Wednesday.

God will be ENOUGH.

Everything this week will be good enough.
Not only did God say “It is good,” but He is enough!

That has to be GOOD ENOUGH for me.

Quick Update...

Well, I made it through counseling. I am tired, we didn’t hit anything real hard. We just talked through things a bit.

Peter made it through his first day of school. He really loved it, was excited to go, and still happy when he got home, though he was very tired.

I got the chance to sit at the coffee shop this morning before counseling, and got to visit with my friend Cindy afterwards. It was really good to have those things today.

One thing to pray for, is that I feel like I am getting this cold reoccurring. I feel all stuffed up and my coughing has gotten worse.

Please pray that I will be able to feel better soon, and get a couple of really good nights of sleep. Once I sleep well a couple of nights, hopefully I will be able to kick it once and for all. I hope. Right now I am completely physically, emotionally, and spiritually exhausted. I feel like I am going to fall apart… and it’s a different feeling than when I came back from last week’s session and was so rattled from the intensity of it.

I fell apart at Cindy’s today when she prayed for me… surprise, surprise!

I just feel rather overwhelmed. I am praying that a good night’s sleep will help. And then maybe I can process through some of this and pull myself together.

Thank you all for your prayers! Love you all.

New things...

My son, Peter, is heading into his first day at 4 year old Kindergarten tomorrow. I don’t think he is nervous, though from time to time he says he doesn’t want to go, and then he asks me more about it.

He got to see his classroom, and play with some of the toys in there, and interact with the kids a week ago. He really liked it, and seemed to be excited about it.

I have all his things ready to go.
I am not sure I am ready to go!

For some reason, I think I am more nervous than he is… could that be?! He is only going to be gone 3 days a week, M-W-F, from 8-3.

Maybe part of it is tomorrow is the first day. I am trying to make sure that he has everything together for the day…. You know, sleeping bag for nap time (I am not letting him take his puppy he sleeps with, with him… he doesn’t realize that he will be resting without it yet) His back pack, folder, and some paperwork for his teacher, money for lunch.

Then I have to get both him and his younger sister up and fed early enough to get him out of the house and to school on time.

Add to that, I have another counseling session tomorrow.

So I have to get myself ready as well. I don’t HAVE to have everything for me ready to go when I take him to school. But I would really like to get it all set so that after I drop him off at school, I can go to the local coffee shop and use the time to try to relax.

So, I guess that there are two pray requests for tomorrow. Pray that my son will have a good first day, and that his mom will be able to let him go without forgetting anything, or worrying too much.

The other would be for me. That I would be able to be calm and allow God’s peace to fill me. That I would trust in Him for everything, especially during the session tomorrow. I feel like I have to do this on my own and “force” through it all by myself, and I know that is wrong. We will only get somewhere if I allow God to work and not try to force my “own agenda.”

I hope that makes sense. It’s been a long day, and I am tired, and it’s only 3:30 in the afternoon! I have yet to get through tonight, and get to bed at a decent time.

I had a good Sunday and Monday though. I got a wonderful chance to spend some time out at my in-laws farm. I got to relax on a swing, overlooking a lake, in the warm wind… reading and praying. It was really nice, and I felt like I was finally able to rest a bit in God’s peace.
I am trying to cling to that, but right now it feels like it is slipping away.

I am going all over the place right now in this post. My thoughts are everywhere, if you couldn’t tell.

Thank you so much for your help, and for your prayers for me and my family.

Nothing... What's in a name #9

It’s really hard to write when I am not feeling good. Not only have I been knocked down and out by this cold, but I have been knocked down and out by this past counseling session.

To say it was difficult or even brutal is an understatement!

I came away from there so shaken and sickened. Only today am I starting to feel like myself again. Maybe part of that had to do with my being sick and low energy reserves from that, I don’t know. But I have been definitely hurting ever since Wednesday.

That’s why it’s been so quiet over here.

During my counseling, Tricia had to stop me a couple of times to give me a chance to calm down, to get a drink of water, and recover a bit. I didn’t “re-live” a lot of the incident, but did get probably a bit more into the memory, and got it into first person. Which meant that I did relive a lot of that pain. Which was what I think I was dealing with the end of this week. The fall out.

As we talked, there was one point where I was about to identify a lie that I was believing, or at least a thought that was there. But I forgot it before I could tell Tricia. I don’t know that I have remembered it yet, but once I got home, and was trying to nap with my daughter, a lie surfaced that has never been there before, at least never acknowledged consciously by me.

“I am nothing.”

I know. Very obviously, a lie. But I think this whole issue was another “proof” of that lie for me.

This is what I wrote in my journal:

I feel deep down inside that I am nothing. Maybe that is part of what all this is about, as I am working through the rape and sodomy that I endured at the hands of that guy. Even all the stuff I have done, the things I push myself to do now, even if (and when) I’m uncomfortable, seem like a shout out into the darkness… a scream to prove that I exist… because I feel that I really don’t sometimes. I do all these things to try to dispel the fear that it might be true that I am nothing.

Deeper than “I am a mistake” or “I am not wanted.”
Deeper than “I am only good enough for sex or to be used.”

“I am nothing” means it doesn’t matter what happens to me because I, literally, am nothing. People can do whatever they want and it doesn’t matter.

I know this is not true. I know this is just another negative name the enemy has called me, that other people have called me through their actions, that I have taken on and accepted as my own.

I even know that saying this about myself flies in the face of all God has said about me. I know that it is me calling Him a liar, by disbelieving the Truth about who I am in Him. I know that is a sin. After my pastor’s sermon last week talking about God’s faithfulness, how can I possibly doubt that the promises He gives me, and the good names He calls me?
God’s part is to be faithful, my part is to trust Him.

I feel that I have not been doing a good job holding up my end of that. I find myself constantly praying, “Lord, help my unbelief!” But, I suppose, that is part of this struggle too.

I have found myself doubting God’s promises to redeem. To redeem me (or that I am already). To redeem the years the locusts have eaten. That He would make me glad for as many days as I have been afflicted, for as many years as I have seen trouble. (Ps. 90:15)

I mean, if I am nothing, then what is there to redeem? Tricia said, and I agree, that the roots of this incident run very deep. And maybe this lie is getting closer to the root. To the very bottom. To the core lie, or maybe is the core lie, that I have been acting on for so long. I have been living with it for so long.

If I am nothing, then anyone can do anything to me and it doesn’t matter. I can even walk into a situation with my eyes wide open, but if I am nothing, and have no value, what does it really matter what I do. I die another little death each time. And if a little bit more of me dies each time something happens, well, then is there anything left at all?

How can you redeem something that isn’t there? If the roots of this run deep, and they get uprooted… Uprooted from what? Maybe the roots are all there are to me. Maybe the lie is all there is left. All the things that I do, all the things that others see me as, even the writing I do here… is that just a way to try to prove that I exist even? (Oh, I know how crazy all this sounds… I know it is wrong… but this is where my thoughts have been going… I am just being honest) All the things I do, are outer trappings.

One of the most frustrating verses, or things that someone can tell me is to “Be still, and know that I am God.” I get told to stop doing and just be. Still? What is that? Be? Be what? Who am I supposed to be? Who am I? When I am not “doing” something? I don’t really know. AM I nothing?

I could list all the truths of who I am. I know them in my head. But that hasn’t made it all the way to my heart yet.

Yet, some of them have.
As the smaller lies have been chipped away,
the truth has replaced them.

I am going to have to hang on somehow till the end of all of this. Because somewhere in me there is a spot, a small, little bit that must be clinging and struggling to survive… a little bit that still trusts. Still trusts God.

He has been faithful as I have asked Him in the past to replace the lies, to help my unbelief. He has given me truth instead about myself. So when the lies are uprooted… there isn’t nothing left. There is truth left.

This just occurred to me (forgive me, I have been processing as I have been writing it). There are two lies at work. One is “I am nothing.” The other is, “When the lies are gone, there is nothing to replace them.”

The Truth is that I am God’s daughter. I am His. I am redeemed. I am loved. I am worthy. I am forgiven. I am cleansed by the blood of the Lamb.

He created me.
From nothing.
So, once I was nothing.
Now I am something.

If I could get a handle on that, now, wouldn’t that be something?!

That night. A dark room, once locked...

How do I write about the pain in my heart?

The ache in my gut?

The thick feeling of tears, stuck in my throat?

I don’t know if I can share what caused it.
I don’t know if I can explain.
Or even if I should.

What I can say is what I have been feeling this past week.

Shame.
Guilt.
Dirty.
Condemned.
Oppressed.

Feeling like there is a weight on me holding, pushing me down.

Feeling like no matter what I do, no matter how much I distract myself, no matter how much I try to clean myself… it’s not good enough to clean away the memories of what happened to me.

I will be honest here. I hope and pray it doesn’t hurt or recall bad memories for anyone else. I will share what caused these feelings, thoughts, emotions. Hoping that it might help someone else, give someone else the courage to face their past, encourage someone else to know they are not alone… hoping that God will redeem this, too, in my life.

One beautiful summer afternoon, at the end of a college year, I drove to my boyfriend’s house, about a half hour away, anticipating a quiet evening of dinner and a movie. And, what I remembered until about 2 years ago, was just that. A quiet evening of dinner and a movie. However, one day, after God had gotten me to the point of being able to deal with at least some of the memories, something else started to surface.

I realized the evening started a different way. It started, not in the kitchen, but in the bedroom. This in and of itself was not out of the ordinary, even in our short 3 weeks or so of dating. However, what took place there, was anything but the ordinary. It wasn’t loving. It didn’t make me feel loved. It was twisted. Violent. Abusive. It left me dazed at the suddenness; shaking from the pain.

I remember him later, acting like I should have enjoyed it. I was so shocked in the midst of it, I couldn’t tell him “no,” much less respond or fight to get away. He left me, going into the kitchen to make dinner. I pulled myself together enough to get past him and into the bathroom. I cleaned myself up, unable to bear looking in the mirror, put on the mask as I came back out into the kitchen, and acted “appropriately affectionate,” eating dinner with him and watching a movie.

There are more details, but they wouldn’t be edifying or needful to understand what I am going through now. Essentially though, I repressed the memories of the terrible things that happened, and never remembered, acknowledged, or even guessed that they existed. I locked them away in a deep, dark room, hoping to leave them there forever.

Now that the locked room has been opened, I can really remember what happened that night.

Before Tricia and I started working through it in counseling, I could see that night in 3rd person. Now, having gone through a couple of sessions, I can see bits and pieces of it in 1st person, where I am actually seeing/feeling it through my own eyes.

As awful as it is, I think this whole process is about getting me to the point where I am actually able to experience it again, at least to the point of feeling the emotions of it, so that I can work through them… or rather, let God heal me through them. So that I am not carrying them around with me anymore.

When I was at counseling this week, I told Tricia that I felt our previous session had not done what normally happens. Up to this point, usually the EMDR therapy helps parts of the memories or all of it fade into the background.

I guess the best way to explain it is when a memory is all charged up with the emotions from it that aren’t resolved, it is in bright living color. Once the emotions from it have been worked through, and I have come to terms with it to a certain extent, the color starts to bleed out of the picture… it goes to black and white. Yes, it happened, and it affected me, but the hold it had on me is gone, the lies that attached to it have been addressed and are starting to be replaced by the Truth.

The previous session almost seemed to enhance the memory of that night. The colors got brighter, I remembered more detail. But the emotions that I know are there… the fear, pain, anger, loathing, self-hate, grief… are buried.

Tricia and I started to get into it, but had to stop due to time constraints. She wanted to make sure that I was in a place where she could help me return to “normal” and be able to get through the next couple of weeks, even leave her office, feeling more emotionally stable.

As we were talking, she asked me how I was feeling. I told her that I could almost physically feel what had happened to me, so she said that we should go there if I was willing. We did, and though I didn’t tell her then, I got so frustrated. I could physically feel some of the pain, could feel the tears welling up, could feel from a distance, the anguish that wanted to surface. But it never came out.

All I could see was darkness, feeling smothered. I remember crying a little bit. I remember gasping, either in pain, or for air, I don’t know which. Tricia stopped the therapy at that point, had me take some deep breaths, and helped remind me that I was still safe in her office, not having it happen to me again.

Looking back now, I see that the dark room I’d locked these memories away in had opened, but all I could see was that darkness, and knowing the emotional pain lurking in there somewhere, I honestly was afraid to explore that room or go more than a few steps from the door, based on the pain I was already feeling.

After Tricia helped me calm down and relax some, she asked me how I was doing. I told her that I didn’t know. I didn’t know how I was going to be able to make it through the two weeks until we saw each other again. I said that I honestly didn’t know if I could get through with all this hanging over me.

It’s like the images of what happened that night are super-imposed over everything I am doing. It doesn’t matter what I’m involved in. I am aware of it almost all the time. And if I am not directly aware of the images, the resulting feelings of shame and worthlessness, guilt and fear are there, and affect how I act in every situation.

We decided to put in an extra session this coming week. Tricia said that it is a safety net for me, if I need it, use it. If I am feeling better, skip it and wait until the next scheduled appointment. I looked at her and said that I felt like I hit such a road block, that putting in an extra session made me feel like I was going backwards, after feeling so good about going out to every other week. She told me that she had many clients who needed to have a bit of extra time to get through something, and then were able to continue on past it.

Tricia related it to road construction. She said that sometimes the planned road ahead is blocked, and even though it takes extra time, there is nothing you can do but follow the detour signs. It might take a bit longer to get to where you are going, but you are still moving forwards, not backwards.

She reminded me that we may just have to come at this from a different angle, a different direction.

So, for now I am trying to hang on.

I am raw. I am hurting. I am scared. I don’t know where else to turn, but to God.

I can’t do much more on my own. I don’t have much more to give. I have no reserves. I need filling. I have started to memorize Psalm 34. I just need some solid truth to cling to right now. There is no better way to cling to the truth, than to already have it in your head, able to meditate on it in the night watches… those lovely times when I am lying awake on my bed, unable to sleep or rest or anything… when disturbing images and thoughts are plaguing me.

Please pray for me as I look at this busy weekend, as I look at the things I want to do, versus the things I need to do, for me and for others. Pray as I look ahead to this week’s counseling, and try to determine if I need it or not. Pray that I would get the chance for some alone time, some time to process and work through things. Pray that God would be my strength. I can’t do this alone, I can’t do this myself.

I want to get through that darkness, have God’s Light flood that room and clear out the shadows. I want God to show me the truth about me and about that night, so that I can finally let go of it. Another thing to lay down and walk away from, never to turn back and dredge up again. I want to get out of the chains that have bound me for so long to that night.

Beautiful?!? What's in a name #8

The other day I was writing about value in Christ. Specifically that He values each and every one of us so much more than we could ever imagine.

That I can accept. I am accepting that. I am actually finding that I believe that.

But there is one problem…

Though I can see that He loves me and accepts me, I can’t look in the mirror. I mean I do when I have to, but I KNOW I am not seeing what God sees.

I see me. I see my past. I see my hurt. I see my pain. I see my shame. I see my mistakes. I see the things done to me. I see the things I have done.

And I know that God sees all that too…

When I look at all that, I see each one of them like a “black mark” against me. I see each thing as something that made me a bit more ugly each time. I don’t like looking at myself in the mirror, because outwardly many times I don’t like what I see. What I see there isn’t beautiful. I find it very hard to find something I can honestly say I like, about how I physically look.

So for a long time, I have thought, well, focus on the inner beauty God talks about.

“You beauty should not come from outward adornment. Instead, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight.”
1 Peter 3:3-4

Reading those verses again, I feel like I am reading them for the first time, and starting to see how they got twisted in my mind.

I heard the part about beauty not being about outward adornment. And I even heard the part of about it being it should be that of your inner self… but stopped listening to the rest. I have looked at myself in the mirror for so long and discounted anything there that might be considered outward beauty… because God doesn’t look at the outside (the things that man sees) He looks at what is on the inside.

That scares me. Honestly. It really does. Because I know what is in my heart. I know what I have seen in there… and know that God sees that too… so how in the world could that be beautiful to him?

So if my beauty is to come from inside, then my reasoning has been… “well, then I really am ugly, cause there is nothing nice in there…”

Now I know that is wrong. I know that God is the judge of what real beauty is. Someone who has physical beauty by worldly standards may be ugly because of what is in them, their character. And someone who is not considered beautiful by worldly standards may be breathtaking because of who they are inside. I have looked at my outside, and by worldly standards, felt myself lacking. But then I have looked inside and thought I was lacking there as well… because of what I have done, and what has been done to me.

All this week I have been struggling with a huge sense of shame, feeling covered with it, feeling ugly because of it, feeling that there was nothing about me that God or anyone else could like about me, much less find beautiful. I have allowed the enemy to really play mind games with me. I have allowed him to fill my head with lies. Lies that I will never be clean. That God will never really love me all the way, because look at what I did… even if it wasn’t my fault, even if it was something done to me…

The enemy has been taking a situation in my life that I am trying to deal with through counseling right now, and is blowing it up bigger and bigger in my face. I can’t seem to escape it. I can’t seem to make sense of it. I can’t seem to let the images go, and let God’s word overtake what happened and heal me.

Earlier this week was a lot worse than now. On Thursday I spent a long time on the phone with Cindy, and spent a good half of that time in tears (sobbing) with her. I couldn’t control my emotions. I couldn’t control my pain. I couldn’t control my thoughts, and couldn’t (or was having a hard time) take the words of truth that Cindy was speaking to me, and accept them, believe them, internalize them. It was like I was listening, but discounting what she said right away. (Sorry Cindy, but it’s true…)

I woke up Friday and was doing better. I know part of it was because I stopped stuffing the emotions and let them out some on Thursday. I also know that part of it was prayer and God working in me to change my attitude. And part of it was, as soon as I got up on Friday, I spent time with God immediately. I read His word, I prayed, I journaled, and it made a big difference.

Today, my pastor talked about God’s sovereignty. How God has made us, all things, and can do with us and everything He has created as He wills. He doesn’t have to answer to us. We can pour out our hearts to Him about how we feel about what He allows or does… but to question what He does, or the reason behind it, is a problem.

“But who are you, oh man, to talk back to God? Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, Why did you make me like this? Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for noble purposes and some for common use?” Romans 9:20-21

I realize this morning, just from the sermon and this scripture, that my problem with seeing the beauty in myself physically, outwardly and the beauty inside of me was questioning God. I have been questioning God that He really did make me as anything of worth or beauty. I have been telling God that the things He allowed into my life to refine me and mold me and make me into the creation He wants me to be, for the use He wants me to have… is bad, or is wrong. I have been telling Him that part of His creation, that He loves and has made beautiful, is ugly and has no value.

I have been telling my God and Creator that the pain inflicted on me through someone in college, and all the other things I did or were done to me, made me damaged and ugly. To the point that God couldn’t fix me.

I have been basically telling God that I deserved what I got, that I am ugly and unworthy, damaged and useless. I have told Him that there is no way He could fix this. I have told Him that I hate what I see in the mirror (hate His creation) and that I hate what is inside of me. I have told Him that I am lower than dirt. A broken pot, whose pieces weren’t even worth enough to be used by Job to scrap his skin.

But who am I to tell the Potter that He made me wrong, that I am not usable for whatever purpose He made me, whether noble or common?

In my family group this week, I shared with them that I was really struggling to deal with a situation of another date rape (different than the one I have mentioned here before). That it has been invading my thoughts all week, and really overwhelming me. As they prayed for me, my group leader prayed that God would help me to be able to refocus my thoughts on Christ, and that I would be assured of my worth in Him. He also prayed that I would know how much they all saw Christ’s beauty in me, and that I would see His beauty shining in me myself. That I would recognize the beauty of Christ in me, and that He was showing me beautiful to others. I NEVER SAID A THING about my struggle with beauty and ugliness this week or how this situation was affecting that so directly!

Thank you God for another way You have shown me how You are working. Even in directing people’s prayers for me. I am sorry Lord for saying that something You created is not good. I am sorry for believing the lies. Help me in my unbelief and heal me. Help me to cling to your truth. Help me to not entertain the thoughts and memories of what happened to me, or even my part in them. Help me instead to meditate on Your word, to fill my head and heart with Your truth. Help both Tricia and I to be open to Your Spirit and guidance tomorrow evening, and give me the willingness to let this go, let it be in the past, and move forward with You. Amen.

The better country...

“All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth. People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. Instead, they were longing for a better country - a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.” Hebrews 11:13-16

The land that I have lived in for so long has been dark and gray and filled with anxiety and fear. I haven’t felt like I would ever receive the gifts of the kingdom, of freedom and promise. I was afraid that I didn’t have a hope and a future, because my past, and the things I have experienced there.

But I have tried to live by faith. Faith in the God of the bible who has shown again and again in the scriptures that He is a God of deliverance. He delivered the Israelites from Egypt, into their promised land. He delivered them again and again from their enemies when they turned to Him. He sent His Son, Jesus, to deliver all of us, if we turn to Him, and admit we need help. I have to believe that He will deliver me.

And I have seen evidence of it. Again and again He has delivered me a little at a time from different things in my past that have been holding me back. He has taken me little by little out of the old country and has pointed me towards the better country. The one promised to me, the one I have hoped and longed for.

Even when I didn’t see the evidence of changes or that God was starting to work, others around me could. I had to take their word for it at first. But then I started to see the promises from a distance. I can see the hope and future. I can see how much God is working. And I do have hope.

The phrase that really caught my attention, from the verse above, was the following.
“If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. Instead they were longing for a better country…”

My past is the country that I have been trying to come out of. When I look back at it, I find that I can dwell on the things that have hurt me or held me back. I end up thinking of those so much, they cause me more pain and hurt.

My past has been an idol, or the pain of my past, I should say. I have focused on that for so long. I have looked at those things and held them up for all to see… held them up in my focus and in front of me for so long, that they have distracted my gaze from God. The country I have come from lures me back again and again to focus on it… to make myself go back there, and be trapped there.

Despite the fear of facing up to, and dealing with some of the last outstanding issues of my past, I know I need to. I need to face them and get them out of the way. Then I can look forward to the promises of the future. And as I am working through those issues, I have learned that I need to keep my focus on God, on the future that He promises me… because that gives me hope. Hope that I will get through and be able to keep on going. Hope that as I leave these things behind, dealt with and in the past… though I might feel empty for a time, God is coming in behind to fill all the gaps. He will fill me to overflowing with hope by the power of His Holy Spirit.

Saying goodbye to the past, to the things that have held me captive for so long, and say hello to the future promises, to the good things that God has in store for me.
That is my goal. That is my focus.

I will not stay stuck here anymore. No matter how much the enemy tries to intimidate me into staying where I am. I am moving on.

I am leaving the old behind, the new is coming. It may be lonely for a while. It may be hard. I may find myself longing for the garlic and leeks of Egypt (forget the Pharaoh and oppressive slavery there) rather than the manna of the desert that is between slavery and the promised land flowing with milk and honey.

I just want to encourage anyone else who is struggling with leaving things behind. There are idols in all of us that block us from God. We turn to them rather than the safe and loving arms of our Savior, because those other things are familiar and comfortable. It is so easy to stay where we are, because we know it.

Moving on, letting those things go, is scary, because we don’t know where we are going. We don’t know where we will end up. We don’t know what this promised land is, or what it looks like. We have heard it is good, but there seem to be so many obstacles and giants in the way. We doubt. We fear.

But God has so much more planned for us. So many things He wants to show us. If only we would follow Him. He is calling to us, calling us to follow Him… to drop everything and follow Him. For what we lose in this life we will receive back more than we had before. (Mark 10:29-30) He will give us more than we could have ever asked or imagined… because He loves us and wants the best for us. He wants us to give Him the chance to show us what He can bless us with.

We just need to drop everything and follow Him.

It sounds so easy in words, I know. In the actual doing it is hard. It is tearing things out of us that have become part of us. But if we ask God to help us separate from those idols and other things holding us back, He will. And, after we have walked away from them for a while, we will wonder why we ever held onto those things in the first place.

God will give us blessings beyond belief. He will fill us, and hold us, even when everything seems like it is falling apart. Because He is the God who creates and sustains, fills and loves.

“For by Him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.” Colossians 1:16-17

He holds us together, even when we feel we are falling apart. When we let go of our idols, tear down the high places in our lives, and feel like we are crumbling and falling and empty… HE IS HOLDING US TOGETHER! He is holding me together.

I will call upon the Lord, who is worthy of all praise. So shall I be saved from my enemies. I will trust Him with everything I am, everything I have. He is my Lord. He knows what is best for me. That is my prayer and my focus this week. Despite how I am feeling, despite the pressure to conform and go back to old ways of life and coping with it.

I choose to put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes (and it will come), I will be able to stand my ground, and after I have done everything, to stand.
Will you focus your gaze on the better country? Will you stand with me? Firm in the promises of God? In Faith?

My One Dollar's worth? What's in a name #7

I have a visual aide for you today…

It’s something that is a lot more effective if it were shown in person… at least the way it hit me today, it really hit me.

In counseling today with Tricia, we were working through something that hit me and beat down to the point of not feeling any value at all. Because of the situation, what happened to me, I was feeling like I was:

UN-valuable
Used
Dirty
Nothing

As Tricia and I talked, and as we were processing through the therapy, there was a point where I felt like I hit up against a stone wall of fear. I started to panic. I could see the situation happening to me in third person, and then suddenly I was in it. It wasn’t something “out there” anymore. It was “here” and “now” and because I have never processed through these emotions, but instead, stuffed them, all of them were flooding through me at once.

I jumped, my heart was racing, I was sweating and shaking, and opened my eyes, but hardly realized it because all I could see was what was happening to me. Tricia started talking to me when she realized that I wasn’t all there and couldn’t calm down. She started reminding me where I was, that it was only a memory, not actually happening to me now. She kept talking to me, trying to get me to make eye contact with her. Telling me that I was safe, I was with her, safe in her office, not in that place or situation anymore.

As I calmed down some and could focus again, she said that she wasn’t sure where I stood on the issue of Christians being oppressed especially in areas like the one we were dealing with right then, but she felt very pressed on by God to pray right then and there. Specifically against the enemy, in this particular situation. Through my shaking and tears, I agreed and she prayed out loud for protection, guidance, and that the enemy be bound right then and there.

After that, I was able to verbalize some of the lies above, about how I felt… basically used like a piece of meat, that my desires and wants and needs weren’t important. I felt I had to meet others wants and needs over my own, no matter how degrading or demoralizing or twisted they were.

Tricia said to me something about my feeling that I had no value since this had happened to me. I agreed with her.

She looked at me and said, “Just a minute,” and went out of her office. When she came back in she was carrying a dollar bill.

We commented that it was a rather new bill, and she asked me, “How much is it’s value?”


I said, “One dollar.”

Then she started to fold it and bend it. As she did, she said, “So if things were to happen to this dollar as it is used, it gets folded and bent, messed up a bit, when you unfold it, how much is it’s value?”


I said, “One dollar.”

Then she crumpled it up in her hands, really roughing it up. She said, “So as this gets used more, it maybe gets balled up, crumpled, stepped on, dirt rubbed into it, really used up and trampled on, when you straighten it out, even after all of that, how much is it’s value?”


I said, “One dollar.”

Then looking right into my eyes, she took that crumpled up bill in her hands and said, “And what if, in the process of life, this bill gets torn apart?” She ripped the bill, and I felt that tear deep inside of me, so much so that I think I might have gasped… She asked, “How much is this bill’s value? If someone comes along and tapes it together, and uses it, after all of this, how much is it’s value now?”


I looked at her, and then the bill, tears streaming down my face as I got the point. I said, “One dollar.”

——————————-

The lesson I learned today, the reminder I got, the truth that Tricia reminded me of in light of the situation I am processing through…

NOTHING can change the value I have in God. He bought me with His precious blood. He has covered me with His righteousness. He has filled me with His Spirit. He loves me beyond understanding.

I am valuable and precious in His sight. He has honored me. He loves me.

Mat 6:26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?

God provides for all His creations. The birds of the air, the animals in the fields… He provides for me, He cares for me. He loves me. I am so valuable in and because of Him.
This has reminded me of part of a song:

And as He stands in victory,
Sin’s curse has lost its grip on me;
For I am His and He is mine—
Bought with the precious blood of Christ.

No guilt in life, no fear in death—
This is the power of Christ in me;
From life’s first cry to final breath,
Jesus commands my destiny.
No power of hell, no scheme of man,
Can ever pluck me from His hand;
Till He returns or calls me home—
Here in the power of Christ I’ll stand.

“In Christ Alone”
Words and Music by Keith Getty & Stuart Townend
Copyright © 2001 Kingsway Thankyou Music

Did you read what I just wrote there?

For I am His and He is mine -
Bought with the precious blood of Christ.
NO POWER OF HELL, NO SCHEME OF MAN
CAN EVER PLUCK ME FROM HIS HAND.

I have value. I am valuable, I am lovable. I am worth something. He went to the cross. For me. For you. I can’t deny it. I can’t explain it. I can only accept it.

In spite of the things that have happened to me, GOD IS BIGGER. His opinion of me counts more than anything that might have been said to me or about me, or anything that has been done to me, or that I have done myself.

My inherent value, worth, hasn’t changed because of my circumstances.

I am who God created me to be. He is using EVERYTHING in my life to mold me. I don’t know what the final product will be.

God does. God knows. God cares. God values me. God loves me.

He tells me to not be afraid. He has redeemed me. He has called me by my name. I am His.
If the God of the Universe tells me that, what more do I need to know my incredible value and worth?

It’s starting to sink in. I am slow. But it is starting to really sink in and take root in the fabric of my life. It’s been a long journey. A long time. But He is patient. He is walking at the pace I am able to maintain. He is with me every step of the way… even when it is painful… and always when it is joyful!

——————————-

At the end of my counseling today, Tricia gave me a big hug and then pressed something into my hand. I looked down and it was the crumpled, torn dollar bill.

She said, “I’d like you to take this. Keep it. Keep it in your wallet as a reminder.”

If you come up to me, any time, and ask,
I will show it to you.
I will always keep it.
I will always treasure it.

That one little piece of paper is priceless to me;
That one little piece of paper reminds me;
I am priceless to Him.

Beth Moore Simulcast... WOW!!!

On Friday, August 1st, I walked into an unfamiliar church, alone, and not sure of what to expect.

Any one of these three normally would have me running for the hills. But I was bound and determined that I was not going to miss this chance to see Beth Moore speak, even if it was via an Internet connection, not live.

I have been reading the Living Proof Ministries blog and I came across something about her being in Louisville, KY on Aug. 1 and 2 for a Living Proof Live event. Then I found out that it was being simulcast to churches all over that were being host sites for people to come to watch the event.

There was a church about 30 minutes away from me, and this is the one I walked into that Friday evening. I REALLY wanted to see Beth Moore. I have read a bunch of her books, and love her style and the way she just puts things out there and is so real. Whether I had someone with me or not, I couldn’t deny the tug in my heart to go.

I didn’t expect this weekend.

I came to hear Beth Moore speak, figuring I would learn something, but not sure what.

I left having heard God speak, and learned immeasurably more than I could have ever asked or imagined.

…Beth just happened to be the vessel He used to get through to me.

One thing that Beth spoke about the first night, was that each one of us has a call on our life from God. He has called each one of us to something. He has given us each a purpose.
I have a purpose. I have a calling of God on my life. He has something for me to do. AND He has made me complete and thoroughly equipped to do it. I am equipped through His word. If I stay in His word, and study it, and ask Him to reveal Himself to me, He will. And I will have all the tools I need to do what He asks me to do. I will be competently competent.

I think that really hit me because Beth never said what that call was. She never specified. But all the things that people have been telling me all along suddenly fell into place. People in my small group, my friend Cindy, my counselor Tricia… all of them have pointed to areas that I have a calling in. First and foremost, my family, and raising my kids. Then in singing on worship team. Writing here on my blog, in my journals, emails to friends, notes and letters. Being a good friend to the people God has placed in my life. Any and all of these are areas I feel called to.

God has given me all the tools I need to do those things. He has called me, He will equip me. Strike that. He will equip me, then He will call me. Hmm.. or does it all happen at once? What ever way it works, I have the tools I need to do the job I have to do… (and sometimes those skills are learned in the trenches, now that I look back at some of my experiences!!!)

Also, a good reminder to me was that if I feel sometime that God has called me to something, I need to hide that in my heart… the visual she gave us: If we feel that God has given us a word, through a pastor, sermon, reading the bible, whatever, put your hand over it, cover your heart, protect your heart so the enemy doesn’t steal that word away. It is so easy to say, “Oh, that wasn’t really for me. I could never do that. That was for someone else…” and in a few days you have yourself talked out of doing it, or trying it.

So, the first big thing was that God has a call on my life, and I do have a purpose given to me by Him, and He has thoroughly equipped me to fulfill that call, and I need to believe Him and trust Him and take Him at His word, rather than try to talk myself out of it.

The second big thing that really hit me… Beth talked about how we are rooted and established in love. Do we really know how big God’s love is for us? Do I know that I know that I know that God loves me? Is it really become a deep belief that God loves me?

Even after all the junk, even after all the pain, He still loves me?

Beth shared some of her testimony. It wasn’t to glorify herself. It was to show how God can use the absolute worst things in life, things that have been forced upon you, and things that you have chosen to do… to the praise of His glory.

One phrase that really stuck with me…

God is going to use our pain to birth our passion.

The pain that Beth experienced gave her a passion to reach out to other women and show them the power of God’s Word to heal them, to pick up their pieces and put them back together again, the way the Word did for her. She is a student of the word, and when she learns something new, she has to tell everyone… it is her passion.

The things in my counselor’s past propelled her into her profession, because she has a passion to help others deal with their pasts to come into freedom. She has a passion and compassion for those who are hurting and lost, to lead them and guide them through their pain so that they too can learn from it and grow closer to God, and become the people He wants them to be.
I can see that God is starting to give me a passion out of the pain in my past. I don’t know what it is. I don’t know what it all encompasses. But I am getting glimpses.

Part of it involves being a good mom to my kids, and helping them through things that I know they are going to face that will be hard and painful, but help guide them through those times so they come out the other side stronger, closer to God.

Part of it could be leading others in worship, because worship has been such a big part of healing for me. God has used it to show me that even when I don’t feel like it, and my “heart” isn’t really into it, I need to make the choice to worship Him in obedience. To lead others to that place in their pain, that place of “Ok, God here it goes, I am going to sing these words, even though I am not sure I believe them. I am going to cling to Your word with the tips of my fingernails if I have to. I hate what I am feeling, what is happening to me. But I will praise you…” It’s not a fun place… but to show others the way through worship… that is something close to my heart.

Part of it could be in writing. Just trying to get people to read my story, see what I have gone through. Know that there are others out there experiencing the same things they have. If I hadn’t had people on the road ahead of me who had gone through the things I have, I don’t know if I would have made it. If I would have had the courage to keep going. To have someone there to point the way, to encourage and cheer you on is powerful. And if I can do that through writing or any other way… Only God knows.

But even as I am still in process, I can see that God is using my pain to birth a passion in me. A passion for Him. For His word. For His people. For His church. For His world.
And I am giving myself to Him. He has made me a woman of substance, of means. He has taken me, no matter what my background was, and loves me completely. So I am giving myself to Him, to use me as He will. Whatever that looks like.

I will end here with a prayer that I wrote in my journal after the conference.

Lord, help me to discern your voice speaking to me and calling me to something. Help me to step out in the NOW rather than wait and worry it to death. I want to hear your call on my life and realize that what you call me to, you have made me competently competent to do all you ask of me. I am complete and thoroughly equipped for every good work.

I can’t thank you enough, God for this feeling of having a purpose for my life, that you have a purpose for me. I know Tricia and I have talked about that some and I have talked about it with Cindy. But today it became real. The future is wide open and I am not afraid of it. Not with You by my side, not with the promise that you will thoroughly equip me to do what you want me to do. I have just a real settling in my spirit that the hard work I am doing now - dealing with my past - will reap a harvest, sheaves of joy, and that you will bless up to a 1,000 generations if I am faithful to you. Oh Lord, speak clearly to me and help me hear your word and hide it in my heart!

Idols and lies... and the one, true God

“Just watched… Just another confirmation from God… Just amazing grace… Just you ask? Sometimes I think of how God looks at me now… just as if I’d never sinned… sometimes I think of how God answers prayer… just at the right time… yes it’s our JUST GOD at work again as He always is…”

This was the response I got from a dear friend of mine after she had watched part of a video I linked to her.

How true is that? Our God is so just, so wonderful, so mighty, so loving, so powerful, so gentle with us. Through my friend and some difficult things she is working on in her own life with God, He spoke into my life in a powerful way.

He showed me the ways He has been guiding me up to this point, this summer. He placed me in a bible study through Living Proof Ministries, organized by Beth Moore. It is a study based on identifying your idols… functional idols in your life that give you something that only God can fill. They function for a time, but never fully satisfy, and so leave you hungry… for more. But God is the only one who can fill us to the full.

Isaiah 46 talks about how our man made idols weigh us down and become burdens to us. We end up carrying the idols that we have made. I wrote the following in my journal after reading the first part of Isaiah 46.

“I didn’t get it at first, (when I read the passage) but we are the weary beasts. I am. Anything that I am holding in my life above You, it is something I physically have to hold up above me to block out the view of You. And holding up these things, carrying them is so hard and weighs me down and makes me even more exhausted.”

Isaiah 46:3-4 says, “Listen to me, O house of Jacob, and all the remnant of the house of Israel, who have been upheld by Me from birth, Who have been carried from the womb: Even to your old age I am He, and even to gray hairs I will carry you! I have made and I will bear; Even I will carry, and will deliver you."

I don’t need to carry those burdens any longer. I can lay them down. Instead of carrying my idols, and keeping them as gods in my life, God is carrying me. Maybe this is what God is referring to when He said in Matthew 11:28-30.

“Come to me all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble of heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

Once I let go of the things I think I need, I can take up Jesus, and find that in my everything, He is carrying me. He has been carrying me. He will carry me. I need to confess the things that I have been carrying and lay them at the foot of the cross.

I have a choice, and so do you…

Like me, you may be thinking, “But they are such big things in my life. How do I lay them down?”

I know I will try to pick them up again and again. They are comfortable and familiar. Some of the things are good things, like singing and playing piano for worship team, writing here and in my journal, my husband… oh, so many more… too many to name. But when they are taken to extremes, and in the deepest part of my heart I become proud of them or possessive of them, then they veer off course and I end up carrying them, holding them above my head in aching arms, but afraid to let them down and see the Son shining in my eyes, and reveal me for who I truly am.

Yet who I truly am really isn’t bad, because I am a daughter of the King. How bad is that? I can have everything given to me, I have only to ask. So why is it so hard to lay the things down that I cling to so much?

Maybe it is because many times we can’t see that we are holding onto a lie. That it is deceptive, wrong and painful to us. I can’t see that I am feeding on ashes at the foot of an idol that cannot deliver me and can only burden me more and beat me into the ground.

God so longs to give me good spiritual food and drink. Healthy and wholesome. He wants me to come and lay my burdens down, and take up His because only then will I find rest for my soul.
This bible study has been confirming all along that is what He wants to have me do. It has been His amazing grace to me that has opened my eyes and let me see. He has confirmed gifts in me, with the warning to not grow prideful and twist something that is good, and depend on it so much that it becomes an idol.

God sees the things in my past, but forgives me all the same, just as if they had never been. He answers prayers that have been prayed over me for the past 3+ years… not when I wanted, not when the people praying for me wanted, but slowly, gradually in His own time… at the perfect time. He is always working whether I see it or not.

And it’s when I don’t see it that I tend to make idols, hoping they will give me the quick answer I want, fill the need I want. Numb the pain, get rid of the hurt, keep more painful things from happening. But that isn’t how God works, and I have had to learn patience. Hard when you are in the midst of a trial.

So many of these things several main idols that I can see, have been a part of me for so long, they look so huge and intimidating, and I wonder if I can really lay them down. Am I even willing to?

Tonight I made a choice to lay them down and ask God to help me root them out of my life. I made a verbal, out loud choice of my will to lay down my idols. My heart isn’t fully there yet, because I know it is going to be a painful process. But what isn’t? Cleansing and purifying our lives can be painful, and can take time. I have been cleansing my life this year through counseling, and it has been very painful… but oh, so rewarding.

I have grown so much closer to God. Even through my mistakes He has continues to call to me. Our just God has been endlessly, unchangeably wanting me to come to Him. When I realize that my way isn’t working, He wants me to fall to my knees, exhausted from all my posturing, manipulating, scheming, and finally lay down all that I have been carrying in hopes that it would fill me.

When I have done that before, sometimes I have expected punishment for leaving him and turning to something else. But each time He has gently taken those things from me and covered me, poured His life and love and comfort into my soul. I have just had to let go and let Him minister to my soul.

Surrender

“[We have to] let go of the life we have planned in order to accept the Life we have waiting for us.”

Our God is our life. Our part is to surrender everything, even our dreams to Him and allow Him to fill every space we have left after letting things go. He will then fill us with His Spirit and HIS dreams for us.

Audience of One...

Who are you performing for today?

Are you performing for yourself, to meet your expectations? Are you performing for your spouse or kids, being who they want you to be? How about for your friends? Co-workers? People at church? Your neighbor?

Are you trying to look like you have it all together? That your life is perfect, married to the perfect husband with the perfect kids… no matter that you are crabby and cross with your husband when he comes home and you give him the cold shoulder the rest of the night, or that you yelled and picked at the kids all day, just because they were getting on your nerves, being kids…

Or you are perfectly happy as a single because it frees you up to do all sorts of ministry, and you have great friends, and you are free to make a split second decision to go anywhere do anything because you don’t need to ask anyone else about it… no matter that when you go home alone at the end of the day you are consumed with loneliness (God forbid that anyone knows that) and you really long to have someone to talk to about decisions you make, even simple ones of going to the store or bike riding…

But hey, isn’t there more?

What about the audience of One?
Isn’t God the One who really matters?

I know when I was single, I put on the face for everyone but my closest friend that I was perfectly happy. But many nights I went to bed, sad and hurting, the loneliness deep inside… the longing I to have someone to share my life with.

Now being married, even though it might look to outsiders that our family is perfect, husband and wife seeming perfectly in love with two perfect, beautiful children who behave all the time, and listen and do what they are told…

HA!!!!

I have been learning there is nothing that is perfect in this world. And no life is perfect, no matter how much someone wants you to believe it.

There is One who will never let you down.

No matter what you do, no matter what happens to you, no matter how imperfect your life is, God perfectly loves you.

Yes. You. Perfectly loved.

Zephaniah 3:17 says, “The Lord your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, He will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing.”

You are saved… He saved you from everything you ever did, and everything you will ever do. He saved you from all that was done to you (even when it doesn’t feel like it) and he will save you from everything that will ever be done to you.

He takes delight in you. That means when he looks down at you, he doesn’t say, ”Hmm, maybe I did make a mistake with that one.” Instead, he looks at you with this glow in his eyes, thrilled to know you inside and out. He rejoices over you, with singing…

That hint of a song you sometimes hear in the air… that’s God. Singing over you.
He can take you in the midst of your anxieties, in the midst of your fear, anger, despair, panic and he can quiet you.

With. His. Love.

How incredible is that? I mean, really, think about it. God can quiet you, can quiet me with his love. When I feel out of control, when I need help, when I feel desperate, and in pain, and discouraged and fearful… if I look to God, He will quiet me with his love.

And isn’t that the whole thing? We need to look to God. We need to fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith.

If we look to anything else, any other thing or person in our life, to settle us, or satisfy us, it won’t work. We will find that alcohol, sex, food, exercise or lack of, watching TV, reading… anything that is good taken to excess, really doesn’t satisfy in the end.

So many times I have looked to other people to fill the void I have felt. No matter how much I have looked to others for approval, attention or love, it fades when I am alone. I find myself doubting and second guessing that anyone even really cares about me. The thing is, people are fickle. They are imperfect and can fail us. They have failed me, and probably will again. I have failed them as well, even if I don’t know it.

There is always the fear that if I say something wrong, or do something wrong, I will end up alone, ridiculed, pushed away, ignored, hurt or abandoned. Because I can’t be perfect for everyone all of the time. If I am perfect for one person, I won’t be perfect for another, and all I will do is tear myself in two if I try to be something for everyone all the time.

With God, there is no escaping him. He sticks with me. He is the great I AM. He loves me more than I could ever ask or imagine. If I do something wrong, He corrects me, but never leaves me or forsakes me. Nothing I do, or say will turn him from me. He is always pursuing me, wooing my heart. He gives me approval when I do his will, and gently corrects me when I don’t. He longs to fill my empty places, and satisfy me. Nothing in this world can do that.

And that is the thing with God.

No matter how terrible our pasts may have been, no matter how guilty we feel, or how much we think we need to cover up, our Lord is greater than all of that. Psalm 123 talks about choosing to lift up our eyes to God in heaven, looking to him until he shows us mercy. Our help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth (Ps. 121). Nothing else in this world that we could turn to compares to the creator of everything in the world. How can a created thing satisfy and fill the hunger that is placed in all of us for the Creator?

When we think we need to cover up and put on masks for everyone around us; when we feel we need to be what others want us to be… isn’t it freeing to know that all we need to be is us? I mean, really. All God wants is us. He doesn’t want what we think he wants us to be. He just wants us to come as we are. If we seek him, he will answer us; he will deliver us from all our fears. (Ps. 34:4, paraphrase mine)

Did you hear that?

He will deliver us from all our fears… we just need to seek him… and ASK him… And here is the most important part…

“Those who look to him are radiant; their faces are never covered with shame.” (Ps. 34:5)

We just need to look to him. Focus our gaze upon him. We don’t need to worry about anything others might think about us. God’s opinion is the only one that matters. If we seek him only, we will never be covered with shame. Instead, we will be covered by his grace and forgiveness.

I guess for me, more than anything else, I want to seek God in everything I do. I may not always do what he wants. I may turn to other things the world has to offer. I may find myself turning from God on Saturday night, and on Sunday morning putting on the mask and pretending everything is alright. But what I really want, is to fix my gaze on Jesus and bask in his love. I want to seek only Jesus’ face, to look only to him for approval, acceptance, attention. I want to perform for him only, my audience of One, and to keep my eyes fixed on Jesus, my gaze heavenward to feel the warmth of his smile on my face.

May I gaze at Your beauty Lord. May I drink it in and fill my soul with the best food - spiritual food that will fill me completely. Satisfy my soul as with the richest of fare. Help me to continually seek after You rather than the things this world offers, so that I may be able to say, “You are my satisfaction. You fill me up to overflowing. You, Lord, are my all in all, and I need nothing else besides you.” Change my fickle heart to always follow You, rather than turn aside to the things the world has to offer. They are but shadows compared to You. Amen and amen.

Our God is so good... What's in a name #6

At Monday’s counseling session, God really did work. I am amazed every time He meets me where I am, and amazed at how patient He is with me.

When I got to Tricia’s office, she was walking out her office door as I was walking into the reception area. She greeted me and told me to go on back, and as I was getting settled, she walked in and said that she felt like she had been with me already the past five minutes. When I asked what she meant, she told me that she had been on my blog (!!!) and read my most recent post… which happened to be the one where I was asking you all for prayer for this particular session!

It was really neat because she had the background of the things I was dealing with, before I even came in, so I didn’t have to go over them too much with her, and I was blessed to know that when she had a little bit of free time (and she doesn’t have much of that!!!) she took the time to read what I had written.

As we talked about the parts of the attempted date rape that still really stood out at me, it created a lot anxiety, and made me start feeling sick to my stomach some. We started the EMDR therapy, and worked around the specific point that was so painfully vivid. That particular moment made me believe, and reinforced several lies:

I am trapped. I will never get away.
I am only good for sex.
I am damaged goods carried over from the last time too.

I can remember thinking at the time of the incident, that if this is what love is, then I don’t want any part of it. I can remember being in the session and feeling so scared and like I couldn’t breathe at all. Finally I think God broke through and I started to cry some. After some encouragement from Tricia (and prayers too I think) I was finally able to just let go and cry.

I sobbed. But I was finally able to mourn and really let the pain out as I did.

Tricia had me stop the therapy and I collected myself and tried to stop crying. Then she asked me to do something new. She asked me if I could take the memory of that incident, and the lies associated essentially, and make it something tangible.

I didn’t understand at first. She explained that she wanted me to imagine the incident, feelings, etc as something I could touch and see.. like before I saw a black box changed into a white gift box, the pain in my heart had become something tangible. So, once I understood what she meant, we started up the EMDR therapy again.

I know that God was facilitating all of this up to this point. I knew it was God who finally helped me break through the wall I had put up against the emotions and pain of that time. It was He who helped me finally cry and let out the pain.

But now it was almost visible. I got this image in my head. It may have come from reading through the “No other gods” study that I have been doing. But I think God used that example to help me visualize something tangible.

I saw Jesus handing me things out from under my bed. Lifting out the words, Dirty, Ashamed, Used, Damaged Goods, Trapped, Good for nothing but sex… all of it. I had to put those in a garbage can. Just get rid of all of them and move the can out to the street.

Only, I couldn’t move the can. It was too heavy, and I realized that I was never going to make it out to the street before the garbage truck came. I turned to Jesus, desperate, and He came and moved the can for me. I had my hand on it, but like a 4 year old without his parent helping, there was no way I could budge it or even guide it. Jesus helped me get it out to the street. Then He made me stand there, watch the truck pick up the can and empty it of all my junk, and drive it away. All I could do was cling to Jesus, feeling the stuff almost being pulled from me, off of me, out of me.

I remember crying. I don’t know whether it was out of relief, feeling lighter, or the pain of something that has been a part of me so long, finally leaving.

I was able to tell Tricia about it. I think I was still in shock. It’s taken a while to sink in. I am still letting it sink in and soak through me at how God worked things out for me to be able to let go the hold this situation had on me.

Tricia asked me to revisit the moment that had been so vivid, one more time. This time she wanted me to try to overlay the truths over the incident. The truths I want to become a part of me, even though this all happened to me:

I am free in Christ.
I am worthwhile.
And, in Him I am complete.

As I focused in on the moment that had so tortured me over the past weeks, and tried to think about the truths, I found it extremely hard to focus in on that memory. I found that my thoughts just kept jumping to my “safe place.” My safe place is a spot out on my in-laws farm, on a lake, under the trees, where I sat last fall, watching a blue heron in the water, hearing the wind in the trees, and the waves on the beach… resting in God’s presence. That is where my thoughts kept returning to every time I tried to focus on the attempted rape, with the positive thoughts.

All the while the words “free” and “worthy” were alternating with each other in my head.
When I told Tricia what had happened, it was a moment of victory. It meant I had finally made a break with this memory. Right then and there, she asked me on a scale of 1-7 (1 not at all, 7 totally know and believe it) how much I know and believe that I am free and worthwhile. I told her about a 5 or so. Another victory! At the beginning of session I told her a 2. That is the biggest jump up the scale I have ever had. Usually I don’t move up at all until later in the week.

Did I mention that God is so good?!

I can hardly believe just how much Jesus has changed my thoughts and feelings in this area. The memory is there, but the emotional intensity is gone, and the whole thing has sort of faded into the background, the color is washed out of the picture.

The healing that He has done in my life, in my heart, blows me away. Even though it is painful, it is so worth the pain of facing difficult memories, hurts, and situations to let Jesus into them. Let Him help you see things from His perspective. Let His healing love flow over it, and give you peace.

That is what He wants for all of us, we just have to let him do it.

Fighting Him just makes the pain worse. Stuffing it all down without working through it at all makes it worse. Worse is where the enemy wants us. He wants us limping, hobbling through life, wrapped in chains.

Then we will be so hampered by the lies we believe.

We will never step out and be the person God created us.

We will never take chances, follow where God is leading, especially when it seems to make no sense. We will never know the pure faith it takes to believe that He will do as He says He will do, because we will never experience Him intimately healing us. We will never fully trust God’s Word, because we will never see it worked out in our lives, tested in fires of trial, pain, difficulties.

There have been so many times where I have read over the promises of God, and never ever seen them. I have read them so often they became rote readings. Only in the last 2 years or so has God’s word become rich, alive, to me. Not since I was a new Christian have I gotten this much out of His word. He has opened my eyes to see how He is fulfilling promises He has made to me personally, and to all of us who believe. It is never in our time. It is always in His time. And whether we believe it or not, it is always for our good.

I pray that God will open your eyes, and hearts to see and perceive His word, His truth, and His active work in your life. I pray that He will do for you (and me) more than we could ever ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us. Amen.