Many years ago while I was attending Christ Community Church in my hometown of Ottawa Illinois I was taught that God gives us a word. A word for the direction of our lives. A word for the year and ever since then I have looked and listened deep within me for what that word would be. A few months after God had spoken to me and asked me to come out of hiding and I was back at my job at Kiddie Academy an opportunity came for me to study and become a lead toddler teacher. I had been approached several times within the 2 years that I had been an assistant teacher but just never had the confidence to say yes. I just wasn’t ready. As Ecclesiastes 3:1 says: For everything that happens in life—there is a season, a right time for everything under heaven: I was a few months back and my lead toddler teacher was ready to move on to begin working in an elementary school and I knew I was ready to fully embrace the dream God had given me. At this time God gave me the word Shine for this season and I was ready to receive it. Psalm 34:5 says Look to Him and shine, so shame will never contort your faces. I knew plenty about shame and how it had pushed me down into hiding. First God had asked me to come out of hiding and now He was asking me to shine. That was quiet a jump for me. I felt like He was asking me to jump across the sky. Sometimes we think this is too much but really its just small little steps built one on top of the other. The truth was I had been shining within my job for quite some time. Although I was an assistant teacher I was already doing the work of a lead teacher. It was just a matter of saying yes. Another yes. But first I must work. So last summer I spent every evening studying. I knew how to put in the work. I knew if I did my part God would do His and I just had to trust the results. I have seen this work over the years as I put in the work to recover from childhood abuse. I also knew that whatever I put in was what I was going to receive. So I worked at it with all my heart for my dream was all heart. I put thought and dedication in all I did. I took my tests and was observed and each step of the way God directed me and in the end it didn’t feel so hard for me because it was what God made me to do. Now it was just time to feel it, to receive it and to embrace it. For with these children whom I love with all my heart I am most myself. I see and feel the best of myself and I shine just as Christ has shined upon me all these years and pulled me out of a childhood where I felt unseen and unsafe. He has taken my wounds and used them. Just as he promised many years ago He said Mary I will bring you to a wide and open space and indeed I have tasted and seen that it is good and it is indeed beautiful.
Tag: christianity
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Stop Hiding
There is a place I go to within myself. I go there when I feel afraid and insecure. It is warm and comfortable. It is where I retreat to when I am hurting and feel unloved and unaccepted. It is where I hide. Only thing is I am a prisoner of all my coping mechanisms. I’m locked up safe inside. My breathing has slowed down and my heart is numb. This is where I was the day that God said: Mary stop hiding. His breath, His words a gentle whisper took my breath away. I have been hiding all my life. I do this in so many different ways in my life. First it begins inside my heart. It grows icy and then I begin to shut down. I grow deathly quiet and my mind goes blank. Then it goes out of my body. I go away and you never hear word from me again. This is my hiding place. But I have grown tired over these years of the loneliness, isolation and depression. I think I was ready to hear these words and I think God had been preparing me for them. Luke 8:16 says you wouldn’t light a lamp and cover it with a clay pot. You’re not going to hide it under your bed. No, when you light it, you’re going to put it out in the open so your guests can feel welcome and see where they’re going. There was a time in my life when I hated who I was but slowly I have grown to love and accept who God has has made me to be. God began to reveal to me how He had come inside of me and lit up all the dark places within and that is where He lives. For Galatians 2:20 says have been crucified with the Anointed One—I am no longer alive—but the Anointed is living in me; and whatever life I have left in this failing body I live by the faithfulness of God’s Son, the One who loves me and gave His body on the cross for me. When I hide I also hide Christ from those in my life. This moment of naked vulnerability cracked my heart wide open. I have said all these years that I believe and trust in God but what I have really been trusting in is my hiding. Instead of letting God protect me I had been protecting myself. It was time for some repentance. Repentance requires a turning of direction. Repentance required a yes. It was time to come out into the open and show who I am and who Christ had changed me to be. 2 Corinthians 3:18 says Now all of us, with our faces unveiled, reflect the gloryof the Lord as if we are mirrors; and so we are being transformed, metamorphosed, into His same image from one radiance of glory to another, just as the Spirit of the Lord accomplishes it. It was time to pull down the veil and reflect who God is in me. To be a mirror of his love and grace. Now I’m on the other side of my yes and God has brought me places I could have never dreamed of but places God has dreamt for me. I can say with certainty it is good and it is beautiful. Maybe you are where I use to be feeling hurt and hiding. Maybe it’s your safe place, certainly it is warm and comfortable there but all the same it’s a slow and numbing place. Maybe you’re tired of feeling disconnected and depressed and you’re ready to take that step and say yes. To come out into the open and see Christ stretched open vulnerable and naked. Maybe it’s time you do the same. Maybe it’s time to welcome those in your life into your heart and help them see where they are going as Christ once did for you and let them see what it means to be free and to be seen.
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pride and my return
It was so much easier to return to the one who loved me than it was to the calling of my heart. When I was a young girl ready to embark on life I knew exactly what I wanted to do. I wanted to teach very young children. Along the way I lost my dream like many do I became disillusioned. As a young person you think anything is possible and that you can conquer your dreams. It’s not so easy to do when you are dragging your brokenness right along beside you. Brokenness and dreams just don’t go hand in hand. Brokenness has a way of smashing your dreams and before you know it you are walking all over them without even knowing it. But God has a way of bringing it all back around. I never knew the day I decided to work at Kiddie Academy as a toddler assistant that He would bring me smack straight into my hearts calling. Leaving my calling was so hard but returning would be by far the hardest step I would take. When I returned I did everything I could not to return to all the people who knew all the reasons why I left. I felt so ashamed. Shame and pride slithered in between me and all God had given me. I just couldn’t face them. Facing things is something I had never done. I would just leave and never return. I would push things down and numb out. I would ignore and pretend but I would never face you. I was too afraid. So I tried to get into another Kiddie Academy but God said no. I tried to apply to other daycares but no response.
So I went back to retail. Just like the Israelites wanted to return to Egypt. I too returned to that which slowly killed my soul. It didn’t take long either til I woke up and realized that I just couldn’t go back I had to go forward and to go forward I must return to where my heart was loved and where my heart felt most alive with my toddlers. At first God said no then he said go ahead so He put me in the most soul killing postion at Old Navy: the dressing room. It’s a job where you make no progress. You run around the store like a hamster on the wheel and when you return to put more clothes away there’s even more than you began with. Day after dreadful day. Then one day I saw the parent of one of my toddlers and it felt as if God smacked me himself. You know the smack I’m talking about. The one that really hurts but is so good for the soul. I thought, “I just cant do this anymore.” I just had no idea how heavy pride really feels. The hardest thing for me to do was make that call and say “I want to come back” and guess what they welcomed me back with open arms just like God has done all along. The only thing standing in my way was me and this darn old pride and it held on and pressed me down from all of Gods blessings for me. ❤️
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Smallest seed
The smallest seed planted into a heart ready to receive will take you places you never imagined. This is where it began. An ordinary conversation with my sister led us to a moment that changed my life. Over the last 3 years God took a prayer I prayed “help me Father to see my sister as she is,” into a beautiful open vulnerable relationship, that I could have never imagined. It’s the type of relationship where you see the things the other cannot see. The deep longings of the heart buried deep within the soil of the soul. God has given me a heart to call out the things I see buried deep within another. Speaking it out gives it movement and it begins to rise out of its nestled cocoon. Sometimes we speak and we don’t even realize the impact our word can have upon our life. A word from God at the right time has great power. Power to move us and help us to move from all the lies that hold us back. And there are so many lies from our childhood that have woven themselves in and around our hearts cutting off the blood that would give us life. But God was beginning to move in though I couldn’t see it at the time.
A small seed began to move within me and words began to flow from my lips. Words that would change the trajectory of my life and how I saw myself and how I would see myself months later. Looking back now I can see it though at the time I just couldn’t. And that’s how God works. He plants these little seeds. They are so small we barely see them. We don’t even know they are there. A shift began to change within my heart. My heart began to see as if magically overnight my it grew a pair of eyes and began to see what was always there. I began to look at my sister and see a woman with an amazing vision on her life. A calling much larger than me. I began to speak this over her and over her and life began to move within us.
Some time passed and then one day my sister asked me if I would help her facilitate a woman’s retreat with her. Without a thought I said yes. The seed began to grow, to move. God had gifted me with the ability to write so my sister asked if I would write for the retreat. Again I said yes. Sometime had passed and God gave me a confirmation that this was the path He wanted my sister and I to walk together. A path towards our inner healing. Since that day I prayed that prayer God had come between my sister and I and had brought more healing. Long hard conversations of what we’ve been through together had brought a healing I never could have anticipated. After all who could understand more than the one who had gone through it with you. Conversations that dig and dig at that hard rocky soil of the heart.
At this time I was attending Community Christian and received a word from God. It came from the story of Mary and Elizabeth. Mary had just received a seed from God. She was with child and no ordinary child, the Son of God who would come to give us our hearts back. Our cold, hard, stony hearts. A seed began to grow. Mary ran to share this with Elizabeth. Luke 1:39-45 says 9 Mary immediately got up and hurried to the hill country, in the province of Judah, 40-41 where her cousins Zacharias and Elizabeth lived. When Mary entered their home and greeted Elizabeth, who felt her baby leap in her womb, Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. Elizabeth (shouting): 42 You are blessed, Mary, blessed among all women, and the child you bear is blessed! 43 And blessed I am as well, that the mother of my Lord has come to me! 44 As soon as I heard your voice greet me, my baby leaped for joy within me. 45 How fortunate you are, Mary, for you believed that what the Lord told you would be fulfilled.
The Spirit began to speak to me and showed me that my sister was Mary. God had given my sister a calling and I was Elizabeth seeing the calling and speaking life over it. Filled with Gods spirit I saw the things in my sister she could not see and my spirit leaped when I saw all that God had called her to. God showed me that this seed He had planted in my heart for my sister was like a baby growing within the womb and as the months passed and I wrote and wrote I would be stretched to see Gods vision and what He wanted to say.
There were pains along the way when I had to wrestle with laziness, pushing myself to write. Wrestling to see the vision of the retreat and coming into agreement with God and my sister. Wresting with constructive critism, the demon that causes me not to write. Wrestling with my voice of this is not good enough. Then there were the acts of nature that prevented us from having the retreat in the mountains. We had to let go of how we wanted it to go and instead let it be what God wanted it to be.
Finally the time arrived and my sister and I made the drive to San Diego and walked inside the house and it couldn’t have been more perfect. A moment shared between two hearts that had been beaten, torn and lost together. We separated much like we did when our hearts were torn apart from years of abuse. Walking the beauty, the serenity. A moment of perfection shared with the one who gave us a new heart and a new spirit. I walked into the kitchen and along the wall was a narrow rectangle table and on the table sat a cube and on the cube was the words DESERVING. I looked at it and the words came into me through my eyes and like a jar of warm honey began to drip slowly down from my mind and wrap around my heart loosening up all the lies that had tangled around it. I felt warmth and I felt love.
As I sat in this moment I thought about how God was in every little detail and even now He was healing me. To know in this moment I am deserving, to feel it, to know it breathed life into me. The seed grew more. As the girls began to arrive my insecurities began to grow. The greatest battle was about to begin. All the stories that I have told myself about myself started to grow. They are plain out lies that I believed planted from years of abuse. Words like you know you don’t belong. You’re so quiet and no one even listens to you. Come on you know no one likes you and they never have. I wrestled and I wrestled.
When my sister first asked me to embark on this adventure with her I didn’t even think about my insecurities, not until this moment when I was face to face with them. That first evening as I shared my story and no one said a word to me. Ahhh…crickets are the worst to the one who needs validation. That evening I went to bed feeling empty and depleted when just hours earlier I had stood in front of those words on the cube feeling accepted and loved just as I am.
The next morning I rose early as I am in the habit of doing. While I stood in front of the mirror I was bombarded by ugly words of insecurity. I found a quiet place and began to read. I sat at a table and Jesus pulled up a seat and sat down across from me. He looked at me with warm eyes as He always does and He took my hand because He knew I let the enemy have a seat at my table and He began to speak to me. He said, “Words have power. The words you speak over yourself has the power of life and death and you my dearheart are speaking words of death over yourself. It was one of the most enlightening moments of my life and the seed that was planted months and months ago began to grow and grow. Jesus reached inside of me and took out my hard, cold stony heart and then He reached inside of himself and took His warm, open, welcoming kind heart and placed it gently inside of me and that is where He is.
These days every morning before I begin my day I take a stone heart that my friend gave me for my birthday and I place it at the foot of the cross and I take a cross that I received years go and wear it near my heart as a reminder that He has taken my cold, distant stony heart and has given me a new heart, a good heart. I take good care of this heart now. I care about this heart and so does Jesus. I pray each morning that He would help me keep it open, warm and welcoming and I know that He will no matter what comes. I’m just not willing to lose it again. Now I have a good heart worth fighting for.
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Gods story for You
God has a story for you. Genesis 1:1 says In the beginning God created everything: the heavens above and the earth below. Here’s what happened. At first the earth lacked shape and was totally empty and a dark fog draped over the deep while Gods spirit-wind hovered over the surface of the empty waters. Then there was the voice of God. God said “Let there be light.”
This is where Gods story begins for us. In the darkness and the emptiness Gods spirit hovers above us. We’ve been believing this story we tell ourselves and no matter what we do it’s always the same. We’ve hit a wall and we just can’t do it anymore. Were just done. Did you know that Jesus says that you’re blessed when you’re at the end of your rope. That with less of you there is more of God. These things that we struggle with are the things that bring us to healing. In 2 Corthians 12 Paul had a thorn that he begged God to take from him. Can you relate? How many times have you asked God to take your struggle from you. My struggle was mental illness. I had no control of my emotions and lived merciless at their beck and call. I was an emotional rollercoaster and so many times I would pray and say to God take me off this ride. I can’t do this anymore. But like Paul I was given a gift. A handicap to keep me in constant touch with my limitations. I couldn’t walk around high and mighty. And like Paul for many years I didn’t think of this as a gift but God taught me that He was enough for me. That He was all I needed and that strength comes into its own in my weaknesses. Once I heard that I began to quit focusing on my mental illness and opened my heart and embraced it and accepted it as a gift.
Its in that moment in the darkness that God hovers and we don’t even know Hes there because it is so dark. Then He says Let there be light and there is light and we see God and He is hovering above us and immediately the scales fall off our eyes. In Acts 9:19 Saul had an encounter with Jesus on the Damascus road. Saul was an enemy to Jesus. He was living his life in darkness. He was a man who killed and imprisoned Christians. He was an instrument of destruction. Spiritually blind. I think this is us too. Sure we haven’t killed or imprisoned anyone but every time we listen to the lies we tell ourselves we are dying a little bit more. We live in fear. In isolation. In depression. In anxiety. All these little prisons we live in that kill us slowly over the years. We living in darkness. We are blind. Then one day this light blazing bright penetrates the shapeless, empty fog that is draped over us and we begin to see just a little bit. This is where I was the day I read the note that my daughter wrote about me. About how lost I was in the darkness of believing all the stories I had been telling myself.
Jesus is the beginning of a new story for you. In Revelation 3:20 it says that Jesus is standing at the door of your heart and is knocking and if you hear His voice and open the door in to visit with you. This is a new day for you when you open this door. On that day you are a new person and the old life is gone and your new life has begun. That’s the thing though you must let go of the old. Don’t be like me. I began my new life and never even realized I was still holding onto the old too.
On this day Jesus begins directing our lives. On that day according to Isaiah 42:16 Jesus begins escorting us down roads we don’t know. Now pay attention to this Jesus escorts us down this road. We are never alone on this road. Did you know that Jesus goes before you and is beside you and behind you. He is all around you. Take it from me. I’m someone who’s been down this road and when I tell you it’s better than you can imagine. Trust me it’s true.
The verse continues and says that Jesus will guide you on this new path. The path of discovering who you really are. Jesus will smooth your passage and light your way. There are many little lights along the way. I like to call these my AHA moments. Where I’m walking along this path and suddenly a light comes on and I realize a nugget of truth. On my journey Jesus lead me to a church. Christ Community Church. At this church I began to experience Gods love for me through the people there. When I first started going to church there I was one of the last people to arrive and the first one to leave. It was how I kept people at a distance but God had other plans for me there. Christ Community was a small church and after my years there I can honestly describe it as a place of healing. It was like a hospital. A place sick people were guided to and were healed. That was me. It was in this place with these people where I experienced who God really was. That he was my Father and that He loved and accepted me.
This place was filled with so many different people who would have such an impact on me. People like Julie who sought me out. She had a gift of hospitality and noticing people like me who hide and she was the first person who opened the door of warmth so I would feel a little more comfortable. She and I became good friends and she had a special gift of words. She would receive words from God for people and write them down. God used these words to speak words of love words of truth about who I was and I began to receive these words and Gods love for me. Over the years I received many of these words. Another person who had an impact on me was Carl. Carl had a gift of prophecy. I had gotten to know Carl and his wife when I went to see Les Miserable with a group of people from the church. One day after church Carl stopped me and said” Mary I see a very bright light in you. Even on your darkest days you are a bright light. This brought so much light o me because I was listening to the story in my head that I’m depressed and this helped me see the truth about myself that I’m a light. Saying yes and making myself available allowed me to experience God more. I have had so many amazing experiences and met so many loving people at Christ Community that I couldn’t possibly describe them all.
Another way Jesus has shown himself to was through scripture. For me the most impactful time was during a dark time I went through. I had fallen in love and was going through a very tough breakup when God really started talking to me through scripture. Through scripture God convicted me. At that time after that relationship ended I began reading Isaiah and God showed me that I had an idol in my life. My ex-boyfriend. I had taken a gift God had given me and began to worship it. I was codepent and addicted to him. And when the relationship ended I couldn’t let go. Through this time God showed that not to make anyone my God and not to be anyones God either.Through scripture God also shows us our purpose Isaiah 61:1 saysThe Spirit of the Lord, the Eternal, is on me. The Lord has appointed me for a special purpose. He has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to repair broken hearts, And to declare to those who are held captive and bound in prison, “Be free from your imprisonment!” years later when I was healing from my past and was in a 12 step program I also began to sponsor and help women in their healing from the effects of codpencncy. God gave my life purpose and he will give your life purpose to. You need to know that whatever God shows you through scripture is true. Isaiah 55:11 says So it is when I declare something. My word will go out and not return to Me empty, But it will do what I wanted; It will accomplish what I determined.You may not know how that word He gave you will come true. Just know that it will. God always amazes me in the way he does things and the people he uses and in his timing. Isaiah 55:9 says My thoughts and My ways are above and beyond you, Just as heaven is far from your reach here on earthWe will never understand Gods ways and His timing just know that it is always good and perfect. More than you could ever ask for or imagine.
The last way God speaks to us is by promises. There are so many wonderful promises that God gives us in the bible but I also believe that God speaks to us individually and gives us personal promises. That’s been my experience. Before I received my healing God gave me 10 promises in Isaiah 60. God said in my depression Gods light would be seen in me. When I was working step 4 in the 12 step program I was in and I wrote down all the things I held against people I realized the reason I was so depressed because I had so many resentments and after that my depression lifted. God said I would be n a loving and nurturing relationship with my children and through my years in recovery I began to change and my relationship with my children became more loving and nurturing. God said my inner circle will build my heart up in love and acceptance. As I sat in a chair around a table in 12 step meeting after meeting. I began to listen and identify with others and find love and acceptance. I learned there is true power around a table. God said I would no longer self protect and my walls would come down. That I would relate in love. As I began to look back at my past and see all my coping mechanism and how they no longer helped me I began to let them go and learn to love. I began to heal my connecting with my inner child and letting God love me and learning to nurture and love myself. God said I will be reconciled to those I have heart and have hurt me. This came through my step work of amends and learning to forgive. God said I will not fear rejection. This one only happened recently after I buried my moms ashes and realized I was believing my story that Im not accepted. And decided I was no longer going to listen to that lie. God told me I am a joy to others. God said I am a peacemaker. I learned to live in serenity by living one day at a time and accept life as it is. One of my favorite mantras that I learned in recovery is acceptance is the answer to all of my problems today and this has helped me to be a peacemaker God said I have a worshippers heart and finally God said my days of mourning have come to an end. Each and every promise has come true.
I have been on the path over 12 years now. It’s a slow and steady path. These truths and experiences with God happened over many many years. We all have different experiences because our stories are all different. We are unique and special in our own ways but this much I know is true for you on your journey as Phillipians 1:6 saysI am confident that the Creator, who has begun such a great work among you, will not stop in mid-design but willkeep perfecting you until the day Jesus the Anointed, our Liberating King, returns to redeem the world. God is beginning a great work in you and if you stay close to him and walk with him he will continue to complete that beautiful work that you will no longer listen to those old stories in the back of your head. Trust me they are still there. I still hear mine but we must drop that trash and hold onto this truth that Gods love for you is so wide and so long and so deep. That he sings over you and has your name written on your hand and that’s a love that can get you through anything in this life.
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Make Room
And I will make room for YouTo do whatever You want toTo do whatever You want to~Community Music
It was almost three years ago now that I first attended Community Christian Church in Lemont. Community has a saying “helping people find their way back to God “ and that is exactly where I was at that time. I had distanced my heart far from God and his people. I was hurt and disillusioned and tired of doing things God’s way. In 2013 I met Chris. I fell fast and I fell hard. I had just spent three years single getting to know myself and drawing close to God. I believed when the time was right God would bring a guy into my life. Chris was charismatic and I was drawn instantly to him. He was a rather new Christian and a 1 year sober alcoholic. I loved how on fire he was for God. From the getgo our relationship was toxic although I could never see it. I quickly replaced God for Chris. I worshipped and adored him. He was on my pedestal and he could do no wrong. Over the next year I constantly compared myself to him and felt less than and was jealous whenever he would give more attention to others. I quickly became codependent with him. It was a receipe for disaster. And God broke us up.
In Deutermony 5:7 God says “You shall have no other God’s before me.” Looking back now I have no doubt God was taking this relationship out of my life. God began to show me that He had given me a gift and I turned it into my God. Not only had he become a love idol to me but I was also addicted to him. And I wasn’t about to let God take him away. When we first broke up I had hit a hard bottom. I would cry so much and so often I would make myself sick. I was a mess. At first I would try not to be around him but then I would put myself wherever he was.
While we were dating I began my recovery from childhood abuse so when we broke up I was already going to recovery meetings and was sharing a sponsor with him. I continued to attend recovery meetings after we broke up so I was still in his life. I just couldn’t let go even though God told me too. I did this for the next three years and I just couldn’t get over him. I was still hanging on. Eventually he began dating a mutual friend and married her, I felt betrayed bitter and disillusioned. I was so mad at God. It was time do things my way. So I began dating again.
During this time I left my church and friends behind. So I went my way. Eventually I met a great guy and moved away. But my heart was distant and numb from all the heartbreak. On that Sunday at Community Christian they played a song called Make Room. A longing to draw close to God began to flicker once again. The song says I will make room for you to do whatever you want to and slowly over the next three years I began to make room.
One thing God used to draw me close to him was loneliness. Partly because when I moved out to Lemont I didn’t have very many friends in my life and also because I was living in a new place I didn’t know anyone. Compounded by the fact that for the next two years we were in the middle of a pandemic. God had made me lonely so I could make room for him and that is what I did.
One of the things God did during this time was draw me close to my sister. Growing up we were never close. My mom had always said to me “I had your sister for you. Growing up with mom was hard. We had our own struggles and pains and spent most of our early adulthood trying to heal from it. God had us on separate paths. As children we suffered silently not knowing we both felt alone insecure and not accepted. It seems Looking back now that we could never be close as sisters as long as my mom was around and it was no wonder because she either pitted us against each other or was jealous. About a year after my mom passed away I realized I never really knew my sister and I was seeing her through the filter of the past. So one Sunday I prayed that God would draw me close to my sister. God used that empty space to draw me close to her and to Him. And now she is my best friend. I believe that in my late 30s when God began to heal me He brought many wonderful women into my life to love me when I couldn’t love myself and to heal my mother wounds. These women will always nestle closely into my heart and I think of them often and am grateful for how they helped bring healing to my life. I needed this before God could bring my sister and I close together and to walk this path side by side.
In this room God grew my heart when He gave Daisy to me. Before I met Daisy I was still struggling with loneliness and my heart still felt numb most of the time. But God has a way of using the most unlikely things to open our hearts. I was never a dog person. Honestly I didn’t like dogs and I would actually cross the street if I saw a dog coming. We never planned on getting a dog but God had his plans and my life was about to never be the same again. It was Father’s Day and we went to visit my dad. While we were there we went out to the barn to look at his dogs. This was something we normally did when we visited him. But on this day there she was the dog that would open my heart. With her warm soft eyes she pulled me in and I haven’t been the same. I fell in love instantly and she came home to live with us. For the next three months I stopped working and took care of her. I cant explain how it happened but my heart began to open again. This decision to get Daisy changed the course of my life because I began to ask myself what do I really want to do with my life. I knew it wasn’t working retail anymore.
I made more room for God to guide me. In this room God whispers. 1 Kings 19:13 says “After the fire died out, there was nothing but the sound of calm breeze. And through this breeze a gentle, quiet voice entered into Elijah’s ears” God quietly reminded me of children. When I was young I always knew I loved young children and felt a calling to become a teacher and along the way I became disillusioned and lost my dream. God opened the door and I began to work with toddlers. My heart opened even more and God brought affection into my heart once again. I just love those moments when you feel like you’ve come full circle. This morning I was sitting at Community Christian. Same church different location. Pondering these last 3 years in my heart and remembering the song Make Room and all God has done in my heart in this life because I made room for Him. I’ve experienced His presence in the lonely places. His favor through Daisy, through His purpose in my calling to love and nurture toddlers, through His people in my relationship with my sister and through His Spirit that’s with me through the loneliness and long nights.
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The day God gave me flowers
Over 10 months ago I packed up my comfort and moved out to Lemont to be with the man that I love. In case you don’t know me very well let me tell you a couple things about me. I have lived in Ottawa all my life. I’m a grounded type of person. I was never the young girl who would say to herself, “I can’t wait to move far away from this town. No I was the girl who liked to stay in the same place around all the familiar streets I know and the people I knew. I loved the feeling of walking into the local Walmart and to be able to run into people I knew. I never wanted to leave home. I love stability and security. I love comfort. I loved the friendships that took years to build. They were like warm blankets to me and I really love my blankets. And that’s the other thing I really love: connection. I love sharing my heart, my thoughts, my dreams and fears. I loved that people knew me and I knew them. It wasn’t awkward it was comfortable.
Leaving was extremely difficult. Taking down my pictures I loved off my walls and giving them to Goodwill felt like a part of me was being stripped as well. Week by week my apartment grew barer as I gave more of my stuff away. White walls and bare rooms and sitting in it was so hard. But I left more than things behind I left my family, my friends, my job behind. When you leave it’s just not the same.As hard as leaving was I am finding that starting over is even harder. I had this idea in my head Id move out here Id find a new church, a new job. I’d make new friends and it would be great. Well as they say life had other plans.
Covid 19 hit. Life changed even more. Connection was harder to achieve through zoom calls and social distancing. Wearing masks that make it difficult to communicate. A quiet girl having to speak loud is so uncomfortable and strangely enough since I began to work it became the new norm for me. Not only did I have to adjust to starting over in a new job, a new church and a new job I had to adjust to this strange new way of living as we all did.The hardest thing about starting over is first nothing is familiar. You felt uncomfortable all the time. At first I wouldn’t leave my house for months unless Joe was with me. Hello new security blanket.
It was hard to be unknown. No one knew me and I didn’t know anyone. For months I felt sad and lost. Thinking of Ottawa. Thinking of Dollar General. Thinking of my friends and my family and ever harder my cat. I thought about how I missed seeing people I knew and who knew me. As time went on and I found a new church and started a new job I really began to struggle. Life was profoundly different here. Life was more faced paced and it was difficult to make a connection. Out here people yell more. They are more unfriendly. They are impatient or maybe it’s Covid that’s changed people I just can’t even tell the difference.
Most days I am among hundreds of people a day and I feel alone. I feel lonely. I’m longing for connection but not receiving it. It’s hard starting over it takes time for people and places to feel familiar. When I first moved here I was talking with my sister. She’s moved several times in her life and cross country. She said it takes a good year or two to feel adjusted to a new place. I think often of that hard truth and it encourages me whenever I’m struggling with my thoughts and feeling sad. These last few weeks have become more difficult. Places are shutting down again and people are panic shopping. Fear brings out the worst in people. Impatience, rude tones, harsh words.
Last week was difficult and on one particular day I felt like the world was out to get me. I whispered a prayer Lord help me. The next few customers were kind to me. A woman thanked me for being here to help. Then a man came through my line. We spoke of the warm weather and he said he hoped I could get out and enjoy it. He said he’d whisper a prayer for me. I said I pray too and God is good to me. He stood there for a moment and looked at me. It felt good to be seen. And he handed me a bouquet of flowers that he had bought and said, “These are for you.” In that moment I knew. In my heart. In my soul that God gave me those flowers. God is saying I see you. I love you. It’s a hard season but it’s also a season in which I’m discovering beautiful parts of God. The true connection I’ve been longing for I am indeed receiving.
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You are favored
For I want to remind you that when we told you about the power and coming of our Lord Jesus the Anointed, we were relying on what our eyes had seen of His glorious majesty, not on cleverly told fables. 17 You see, God the Father lavished honor and glory upon Jesus when the voice of the Majestic Glory echoed from heaven and said, “This is My beloved Son, and My favor rests on Him.”[a] 18 We witnessed this—we ourselves heard this voice from heaven—when we were with Jesus on that holy mountain. 19 We have a fuller confirmation of the message of the prophets. You would do well to pay close attention to this word; it is like a light that shines for you in the darkness of night until the day dawns when the morning star rises in your own hearts.~ 2 Peter 1:16-21
I want you to think of your favorite person. Put them in your mind and hold them up close in your heart. We all have them even if we don’t want to admit it. Once in a while we meet someone and the connection is instant. We feel like we’ve known them forever and we just can’t explain it. You can talk for hours. They make you laugh and time just passes so quickly when they are near. You feel like kindred spirits and you just get each other. They are your favorite person. Think about what makes them your favorite person. Are they vivacious? Funny? Thoughtful? Infectious? These are just some of the qualities of one of my favorite people. My favorite person is my work bestie Yvonne. When we first met it was instant and immediately she became one of my favorite people to see. Whenever I saw her my day was instantly better. She made me laugh and the best of me just seemed to pour out whenever I saw her. I don’t know what it was but I believe it was God. Before I met Yvonne I had just come out of a lonely season. I had just moved from my hometown and relocated. For years I felt I just couldn’t connect with anyone. I prayed for years God send me a friend so when I met Yvonne I knew God had sent me a friend.
Now I want you to think about this. Did you know that you are Gods favorite person? Did you know that God holds you close to His heart? That He feels warm and happy inside when He thinks of you. That time passes so quickly when you are near to Him. And when He sees you it makes His day. Did you know that all those qualities you don’t like about yourself God adores. In His eyes you can do no wrong because you are His favorite person.
We are so hard on ourselves and we just imagine how God could see the best in us. Maybe it’s time to refreshen our hearts and minds and start to see ourselves the way our creator sees us. The only true and real way through the eyes of love. 2 Peter 1:17 says “You see, God the Father lavished honor and glory upon Jesus when the voice of the Majestic Glory echoed from heaven and said, “This is My beloved Son and My favor rests on Him.” Just as God the Father said to Jesus this is My beloved son. So He says to you “This is my beloved daughter. You are His beloved daughter. Say it out loud. I am His beloved daughter. Keep saying it over and over till you believe it. Till you feel it. Because it is true and real. And just as God the Father said to Jesus “My favor rests on Him. He also says to you “My favor rests on you.
You are His favorite. Say it out loud “I am His favorite. Hold it close. Feel it. Know it. Be it. Pay close attention to this word. For when you have your aha moment and you feel it deep inside it will be a light to all the darkness you once believed about yourself. Once you do. This light will awaken within you a true light that will never go out. It will rise up in your heart and you will realize all that you believed before was never true. That you are loved. You are accepted exactly as you are. And that is a word worth believing in.
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Like a Garden without rain
There was a time that I was like a garden without rain. Looking for life but not finding it. Despite all He had done for me I rebelled. So here I was down on my knees, washed up, bitter without a heart. So I decided the only thing I could do was reach up towards the one who had pulled me out of the merely clay time and time again. He pulled me up and helped me wash myself and helped me clean up my life. I came along with God. walked and talked with Him and I worked this out with Him. He woke me up to all my life had become. He began to burn off what was worthless, purging what was impure. He put me under the test when I lost everything and He restored me and delivered me from myself. I was crushed and done in. I was ashamed because I worshiped the gift inside of the giver. I fell apart, faded and dried up. And the years that followed were a time of enlightened. These years I stood in His strength and went towards Him and He began to water my dry and dusty soul. He began to teach me the best way to be and the sun slowly began to rise within my spirit. I have been on this journey 12 years now and I have learned to go along life as He would have me to go. To put Him first and to place my will and my life into His hands knowing that it is all good and it is as it is meant to be. I no longer take on the attitude or posture of other people. I no longer imitate anyone who crosses my path. I no longer worship my idol of people pleasing and chasing after romantic love or putting men on pedestals for I was humbled. My bubble was burst. The people I had placed on pedestals were pulled down and though it took me many years God and no one else became my center. He was lifted up and lifted up in high esteem. On that day I was shattered and pulled down. My idol vanished. I hid myself away in the rocky cave within myself. When I fell I left my idol behind, the one I worshiped. So On that day I stopped believing that human beings were so amazing. We are short lived only a breath away from death and worth as much. People aren’t so special. God took away my heroes, the ones I never thought would fall, fell away from me and I was left alone. They didn’t stay and play nurse to my wounds, they just walked away leaving me in shambles. The ones I looked up to now looked away. Everything began to go wrong for me. All that I had done came back at me. Oh how I ached for companionship, but loneliness only licked my wounds, a deep bitterness that would not heal. Oh how I mislead myself as I was guided down the path of disaster. My heart was devoured and I was left feeling so needy. Oh how I was crushed by my infatuations. My face was grinded down into the ground because I was so proud, so preoccupied with myself with my strutting and flirting, with my skipping and dancing, with my winking and giggling for attention and what for it was never enough for me. I always needed more, more affection and attention. Instead I was left feeling naked and bald, smelling of decay and what was worse I was so oblivious to it all. In my tears and in my grief I sat as a heap on the ground, desolate and empty. In my shame I looked up to God. I begged God to take away my shame and all the bad things I had done that rotted my soul. I reached up my arms and turned away from the way I was living so I could just be called by Gods name. Then a tiny shoot was cultivated and nurtured by God. I emerged new and green, a promise of beauty. I offered myself for it was all I had, my heart, my mind, my spirit and God made it lovely. He called me precious. He called me special. He called me holy. He made me alive for He washed away my fifth and cleaned up my blood with His spirit of justice and breath of fire. He hovered above me just like when He created the earth and all within it and He created a wonder within me. He rose above the cloud and smoke of my soul and created a bright and shining fire within me, to light all the darkness within so that my darkest day would seem like light, a bright and shining light. He nestled in and rested within me. My heart was now His home and within Him I found a place of shelter and a place to retreat amid the storms and the rain. ~based from Isaiah 1-5
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You are called
You are totally accepted. You are extremely valued. You are eternally loved. You are completely forgiven and now that you know who you are it is time to take that step and begin to live as you are accepted, to live as you are valued, to live as you are loved and to live as you are forgiven. You have been chosen and set aside for a special calling. To show the ones put on your path Gods acceptance. To show them that they are a treasure. To show them Gods love and forgiveness. It was the Sunday before my world changed as I knew it. I didn’t know it but God did. I was sent on a special mission to be love but I didn’t know it. I never felt like anything special. Growing up in a dysfunctional home will do that to you. It leaves you craving for all the things you should have received as a little kid but you just grow up feeling so empty so insignificant. It was a Sunday like any other Sunday or so I thought. We were being called to be the love where we lived. I had recently just moved to a new home in a new city. I was trying to adjust to all the new changes but just felt so alone and lonely. I still missed my old home with all its familiar sights and sounds. It was still home to me. I felt like a nomad caught in between the place that felt like home and the place that didn’t. I imagined I probably felt a little like Abraham when God called him away from his home. So the call to love where I lived was a challenge to me. In hindsight it took years to feel at home there. But that day as I walked forward to be anointed I never could have known that I was being called to show others a different way to live. But God knew. Then the pandemic hit and I was on lockdown. These were challenging days. Challenging to new couples and old alike. But here I was and I was going to make the best of it. It was a divine time for me where I drew closer to God and found my way back to Him and also a time that showed me that I was no longer the person I use to be. Recovery had changed me and recovery lived in me and began to change others through me. For me the pandemic was just the starting point of what God would do through me. To bring serenity and calmness and healing. You are called to. Close your eyes. Take a calming breath and think about where you live. Picture those you live with. Now picture where you work. The people you see day in and day out. Maybe they have become an extended family to you too. Where you live and work and walk and shop and go to church this is where you are called to be love. You are capable and you can do it. It doesn’t happen overnight. It happens when you create space for God to work and to move and breathe in you. When I first moved I started going to Community Christian and one of my first Sundays there I heard this song that has stayed with me and created an open space for God to begin to move in my life. . As I listened to it a longing to draw close to God began to flicker once again. The song says I will make room for you to do whatever you want to and slowly over the next three years I began to make room. One thing God used to draw me close to him was loneliness. Partly because when I moved out to Lemont I didn’t have very many friends in my life and also because I was living in a new place I didn’t know anyone. Compounded by the fact that for the next two years we were in the middle of a pandemic. God had made me lonely so I could make room for him and that is what I did. One of the things God did during this time was draw me close to my sister. Growing up we were never close. My mom had always said to me “I had your sister for you. Growing up with mom was hard. We had our own struggles and pains and spent most of our early adulthood trying to heal from it. God had us on separate paths. As children we suffered silently not knowing we both felt alone insecure and not accepted. It seems Looking back now that we could never be close as sisters as long as my mom was around and it was no wonder because she either pitted us against each other or was jealous. About a year after my mom passed away I realized I never really knew my sister and I was seeing her through the filter of the past. So one Sunday I prayed that God would draw me close to my sister. God used that empty space to draw me close to her and to Him. And now she is my best friend. I believe that in my late 30s when God began to heal me He brought many wonderful women into my life to love me when I couldn’t love myself and to heal my mother wounds. These women will always nestle closely into my heart and I think of them often and am grateful for how they helped bring healing to my life. I needed this before God could bring my sister and I close together and to walk this path side by side. In this room God grew my heart when He gave me my dog Daisy. Before I met Daisy I was still struggling with loneliness and my heart still felt numb most of the time. But God has a way of using the most unlikely things to open our hearts. I was never a dog person. Honestly I didn’t like dogs and I would actually cross the street if I saw a dog coming. I never planned on getting a dog but God had his plans and my life was about to never be the same again. It was Father’s Day and I went to visit my dad. While I was there I went out to the barn to look at his dogs. This was something I normally did when we visited him. But on this day there she was the dog that would open my heart. With her warm soft eyes she pulled me in and I haven’t been the same. I fell in love instantly and she came home to live with me. I can’t explain how it happened but my heart began to open again. This decision to get Daisy changed the course of my life because I began to ask myself what do I really want to do with my life. I knew it wasn’t working retail anymore. I made more room for God to guide me. In this room God whispers. 1 Kings 19:13 says “After the fire died out, there was nothing but the sound of calm breeze. And through this breeze a gentle, quiet voice entered into Elijah’s ears” God quietly reminded me of children. When I was young I always knew I loved young children and felt a calling to become a teacher and along the way I became disillusioned and lost my dream. God opened the door and I began to work with toddlers. My heart opened even more and God brought affection into my heart once again. I just love those moments when you feel like you’ve come full circle. Recently I was sitting at Community Christian. Pondering these last 3 years in my heart and remembering the song Make Room and all God has done in my heart because I made room for Him. I’ve experienced His presence in the lonely places. His favor through Daisy, through His purpose in my calling to love and nurture toddlers, through His people in my relationship with my sister and through His Spirit that’s with me through the loneliness and long nights. As you walk this path with Jesus and begin this journey and you begin to stop listening to those voices of the past and begin believing really believing who Jesus says you are in Him and make room for him to move in whatever way He wants to. Maybe it will be through music, through scripture, through people, through dreams or visions you will begin to be more accepting, more loving, more forgiving.Recently God has been moving me deeper and showing me in my own life even though many years ago I began this journey of discovering and loving and accepting who I am. I still was believing the lies and still living it out in my life. Recently I buried my mom’s ashes. It was the morning before and God whispered to me “Your thoughts are lying to you.” It was true I did believe everything I thought. I believed no one liked me. I believed I was never good enough. I just could never believe that I was loved and accepted no matter how hard I tried. In that moment my eyes were opened and I believed. I believed I spent my life listening to the lies of the past. Instantly I believed who God said I was that I am loved and accepted exactly as I am. I decided in that moment I was done. It took me a lifetime to get there. It was time to stand up. To stand tall and believe what God said to me. The promise He gave me so long ago that He would change my name. That I would no longer be ugly but beautiful. No longer afraid but fearless and no longer insecure but confident. I was stepping into who God made me to be. So the next day I stood up and I walked. As we stood at the gravesite and watched the hole being dug where my daughter would place my mom’s ashes. I thought about my life and how buried I had been by all the lies I believed for so long. It was a darkness that penetrated my mind. We stood there and my aunt asked would anyone like to say anything. Silence. Some moments require no words. This was that moment. I watched as my daughter placed the ashes down into the darkness and I felt more liberated than I ever have in my life. I watched as dirt piled up around her and with her it was over. I was done and the lies were buried and I was free to be who I was always meant to be. Happy, joyous and free and it was through this time of making room for God to move that I really began to walk in the freedom of the truth of w am. So take the time. Make the space and just sit back in wonder and see what God will do in you and through you.
Meditations from the heart 