a day in the journey

It has been pressed upon my heart to make note of this journey in which God is taken me on.  I cannot express how extremely vulnerable I feel and I am not sure why.  After all, I trust Him.  Maybe I shudder at what I might discover.  But in a good, exhilarating, jump off a cliff kind of way.  These past few days as I sit at His feet I can hardly contain myself.  I just weep.  I weep in response to the words He keeps whispering to my heart.  The words "I love you".  I was reading through the pages of Ephesians and my heart felt as if it was about to explode.  Why is this so difficult for me to get or feel?  Up until a couple years ago, I could barely say the words "God loves me".  I just don't understand how He could.  I want to understand, I want to feel it, to grasp it but there is something inside of me that is almost fearful of it.  He has begun to pull back the layers that have kept me from being able to really feel his love and it is borderline frightening.  It is that feeling in the pit of your stomach when you are standing at the edge of a cliff, looking into depths in which you cannot see the bottom, about to jump.  My mind keeps trying to make sense of this.  "Of course I know God loves me, duh".  I think up until this point I have known that God loves me, but I haven't KNOWN his love.  I know this journey has been brought on by the recent drudging up of the rejection of my mother.  For as long as I can remember, I have struggled with allowing people to love me.  I have felt unworthy and undeserving and I just learned to accept that.  I would do all the loving, but don't try to love me back.  That would mean that my heart was vulnerable again and open to rejection.  I have built walls and walls around my heart in order to keep that from happening.  I would serve, love and forgive others but to be able to accept love in return makes me so uncomfortable.  Honestly, it's foreign to me.  God showed me this issue first in my marriage.  It is so difficult for me to let Luke love me.  Over the course of our relationship I assumed the role that I was most comfortable at.  I loved him, he would screw up, I would forgive him and then love and serve him, once again being the hero.  But never ever allowing him to gain complete access to my heart.  Nope, that was reserved for Jesus only because after all, he is the only one who has never betrayed me.  When the Lord revealed this to me, I began to pray for healing in this area of our marriage.  Well apparently, in order for me to be able to allow Luke to love me I first have to truly know the love of God (who woulda thought right?).  Deep in my heart I long to see and understand how the Lord sees me.  I know that his word says that when he looks at me he sees Jesus but I want to feel that.  I desire to be as close to the Lord as one possibly can while walking this planet.  That has been my prayer.  I know this is a journey to that next level of intimacy with the Him.  I am so excited to see what he is gonna do with the mess of a heart.  He makes beauty from ashes. 
Ephesians 2:4-9, 3:14-21 

wounded heart-healing heart

These past few months have been a struggle to say the least.  God is doing an amazing work in my heart and of course, no surprise Satan has amped up his attack on me.  What Satan doesn't seem to get is the more he attacks, the more he pushes me to the arms of my Savior who in turn shows himself faithful to strengthen and revive my soul.  I can see so clearly Satan's strategy.  It's the same card he always pulls when God brings me to a whole new level in my walk with him.  Family.  This heart bears some very deep wounds that have been scabbed over for years and within a matter of seconds they were all ripped open and once again I was left to deal with a bleeding heart.  I was under the impression that I was over all of this, that I had dealt with it and moved on.  At the sight of her blood shot eyes, her staggering stance and the smell of stale liquor even after all of these years, all of those feelings came flooding back except this time it was much more intense.  The rejection, the abandonment, the lack of love from the one person who is suppose to love me more than anyone.  I am almost 28 years old and at that moment I was a child again.  All of the anger and frustration exploded in my heart as it did so many times before.  I don't know why it was so much more intense than ever before.  Maybe because I have since become a mother myself and as I stare in the eyes of my children I can't imagine choosing a selfish escape to alcohol over fighting for them.  I am not one to candy-coat anything.  My view of life is pretty literal and practical.  I don't tell myself lies in order to soften the blow.  I am an 'it is what it is' kind of girl.  And the truth is she does not love me and never has.  I believe she desires to love me, she has affection for me and loves the idea of me but she does not love me.  That hurts.  I have walked around my whole life with this rejection.  It has affected choices I have made as a teen that I absolutely regret.  It has affected the way I see myself and my view of God.  I have battled the demon of insecurity for as long as I can remember.  I have never been enough.  I am not blaming her for these things, because I am responsible for every decision I have ever made all I am saying is walking around in this world with anger, bitterness, rejection and worthlessness has a major affect on your perspective.  But God has changed so much of that.  I have tasted victory over all of these things and that makes my enemy very angry.  This was his opportunity and he took it.  It felt like a sucker punch to the stomach.  After the series of events I was left with all of those feelings again and this time, instead of gritting my teeth and pushing through like I had always done before.  I ran to the feet of my Savior, my safe place, and laid my bleeding heart bare before him, knowing that only He could heal me.  I was reminded of the story of the bleeding lady in the crowd who reached up and touched the cloak of Jesus' garment because she knew if she could just touch him, she would be healed.  He called her daughter, and she was healed.  I began to see that anger creep back and over the past week I have lacked the peace that I usually have in Him.  I am so thankful that He opened my eyes to see it and came to my rescue.  It is so difficult for me to admit this hurts me, I don't know why, but it is.  But I know He knows my heart before I utter a word.  He knows how I have dealt with this in the past and He has better plans in store for me.  You see, what Satan intended to knock me down, God is using to build me up.  He allowed this to come back into my life and rip open all these old wounds only so that He can heal them for good.  I know that He has a plan for me in women's ministry, He has shown that to me clearly and quite frankly I feel like the most retarded candidate for the job because of how screwed up every important woman relationship is in my life.  They have all walked out on me, they have all hurt me deeply and rejected me only to leave me jaded and angry (He's changing that too by the way).  That is his way though, and I love it.  He uses the absolute weakest to do His work so that He receives the glory.  I love His ways.  He is teaching me when to love, let go and move on without guilt.  I by no means have this figured out, He has me on incredibly painful yet rewarding journey.  I know through every tear He has been and is there and He is faithful to bring this work that He has started to completion.  I feel more vulnerable now than I have ever felt in my life and it scares the pants off of me but I know I am safe in His arms.  I know this is so choppy and jumbled up because there is such a magnitude of growth going on in me, there are no words to convey it all. In all of the circumstances and pains it all points back to one thing.  I have a Father who loves me, who accepts me, who has called me daughter, who is faithful and that is ALL I need. 

Sweet Lord,
Thank you for loving me.  Thank you for calling me yours, not because of anything good I have done but only because of grace.  Thank you for allowing me to experience every stitch of rejection so to be found excepted by you.  Thank you for allowing me to experience abandonment so to be adopted as your daughter.  Thank you for every lack of love from those who have failed so to see how deep your love runs for me.  You know these wounds.  Heal me sweet Jesus.  My heart is yours and only yours.  Thank you for bringing me to a place of complete dependence on you so to see your faithfulness time and time again.  I love you. I pray my life says that each and every day. 

a dead city who thinks it's alive

One of the biggest deceptions in our culture is the sense of false security.  A people fed the lie that because they said this specific prayer, walked the isle and attend church every week that they are good and they have all they need when really all they have is an empty religion and a weekly ritual.  We pray these prayers and tell these people that because they say these magic words their lives will be forever changed and then we drop them like a bad habit.  There is never any life change.  There is never any fruit.  Jesus said go make disciples.  This requires time invested in those whom Christ has called.  Christ was the perfect example.  He had his disciples who lived with him.  They studied under him, they watched his every move and when Christ gave them the great commission, these men were not perfect, but they knew Jesus.  He didn't say "Hey Simon Peter, come pray this prayer, fill out this card and you're all good brother! Good luck figuring it all out!"  We have fattened our egos with big numbers all the while starving the body of Christ.  I look around in my city and it is filled with people who really believe this is all there is to the gospel.  They think they are good, they got their fire insurance.  Hear me when I say being a Christian is not linked to being southern!  Christianity has become a bible-belt southern thing. This personally, drives me crazy.  The mentality is "Well of course I'm a Christian!  I go to church every Sunday and most of the time Wednesday (followed by an eatin' meetin' afterwards), I tithe my ten percent and serve on all the important committees, plus I have a southern accent!" This deception is all a plan of the enemy.  If he can trick you into believing you are really a Christian without really knowing Jesus then he accomplishes two things.  One, is you, in fact, are not a true follower of Christ because there has never been a submission to His authority over your heart and life (i.e. no life change) and two, you are a false representation of who Jesus is to other non-believers.  You carry the name of Jesus but have no idea who he is and therefore live a dead life, wearing his name in vain. I know this may seem very harsh and well, you're right it is.  But the fact is I'm angry about it.  I'm angry at the watered down religion I was fed and I'm angry its created a dead city who thinks they are alive.  Really and truly, if you know Him then this should tick you off too.  Here is the encouragement, we have the truth at our fingertips in His holy word.  Seek Him, obey Him and abide in Him and He will do the rest. We cannot do this alone (thank goodness because I fail miserably at discipleship) with a willing and obedient heart, Christ is glorified.

Now, do you really know Him?