Recently I buried my moms 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 excatly 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 moms 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. 💜
Tag: faith
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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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Father forgive them
Father forgive them for they don’t know what they’re doing”~Luke 23:34
What does forgive them for they know not what they do really mean anyways? A few years back God began to whisper this to my heart. I went through a challenging time in my life where someone in my life struggled with anger. Anger has always been a hard thing for me because of the people pleasing narrative that ran through my mind. It said if people are mad at you then they don’t like you. So for most of my life I had lived my life this way. Ill make you happy and you wont be mad at me and will like me and Ill feel good about myself. But then I met someone who just was angry. It didn’t matter what I said or did to try to make them happy they still got angry. They had a problem and I didn’t know how to fix it. I was pretty miserable. It was then that God began to whisper Forgive them for they know not what they do. I really began to truly understand for the first time what this means. This person just couldn’t see that they had a problem. No matter how many times I would say ‘ you have an anger problem’ their reply was ‘ I don’t have an anger problem.’ It was a trying time that I still cannot forget. As humans we all have our vices we struggle with and we just cannot see how our troubles trouble others. I’ve had my fair share of my own troubles that now I am certain I brought trouble to others but sometimes you don’t realize that until you feel the pain of it. So I began to pray and pray and pray. Father forgive them for they know not what they do. It was an enlightening time for sure. To forgive those who are clueless to their trouble and to realize that my own troubles bring troubles to others. Its one thing to pray Father forgive them but quiet another to practice it myself. To forgive someone who is clueless is to do as Jesus said to Peter. When Peter asked how many times should I forgive my brother. Jesus said 77 times. Wow that’s a lot of times. It means we keep forgiving and forgiving. Its something we just cant do without Gods spirit inside us. This time in my life has now passed and Im in a peaceful season but I am grateful for this season where I learned about forgiveness and how it changed my heart.💜
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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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Rooted
The Eternal One will never leave you; He will lead you in the way that you should go.When you feel dried up and worthless, God will nourish you and give you strength. And you will grow like a garden lovingly tended; You will be like a spring whose water never runs out.~ Isaiah 58:11
I remember many years ago sitting at Crossbridge church on a Friday night singing this song by Sidewalk Prophets called Keep Making Me.
It goes like this:Make me brokenSo I can be healedCause I’m so callousedAnd now I can’t feelI want to run to YouWith heart wide openMake me brokenMake me empty So I can be filledCause I’m still holdingOnto my willAnd I’m completedWhen you are with meMake me empty‘til you are my one desire‘til you are my one true love‘til you are my breath, my everythingLord, please keep making meMake me lonelySo I can be yours‘Til I want no oneMore than You, lord‘Cause in the darknessI know you will hold meMake me lonely‘Til you are my one desire‘Til you are my one true love‘Til you are my breath, my everythingLord, please keep making me‘Til you are my one desire‘Til you are my one true love‘Til you are my breath, my everythingLord, please keep makingI know you keep makingLord, please keep making me
The lyrics to this song are quiet profound. When I first heard them I sang them without thinking what they would really mean for my life. It was early in my recovery and I could really relate to that first line make me broken. I could fully admit I was broken and the whole purpose of my life at that time was to be healed. Up to that point I had spent decades numb and calloused and I was running towards God with my heart wide open.
I could also relate to the second lyric make me empty. I went from one relationship to the next trying to fill my heart with love but only ended up feeling emptier. I was chasing after the things I never received as a child and instead of chasing after God I chased after one man after another. I wanted to chase after the things I felt would make me whole but they never did. I was beginning to let go of my will and surrender to God.
But these lyrics make me lonely wow I never really knew what they could mean for my life. It really is crazy when you sit back and really see how singing one song could profoundly change your life in all the hard ways. I do think now at least for myself I have sang songs not really grasping what I was really singing with words too profound that you only really know what they mean by living them. Loneliness I discoved was one of those things you must experience to know how deeply troubling it is to walk through. To me it’s very similar to grieving a loved one. Before you lose someone to death you think you know what it’s like, what it feels like and then the day comes: the experience of death and it’s too profound for words and you realize man I really didn’t know. My experience with loneliness has felt a lot like that. Interesting enough my experience with death proceeded my experience with loneliness. I’m not quite sure how I had not experienced a season a loneliness until I was 45 years old but I sure am thankful.
I prayed a lot during this time and for years while I went through it but day after day I just felt so alone. Then one night God came to me through a dream. I’ve read so many stories over the years of how God came to people through their dreams and spoke to them but I had never experienced it. I’m not even sure I even believed in it, at least not for me. Webster defines a dream as a series of thoughts, images and sensations occurring in one’s mind during sleep. In my dream I was barefoot and I was standing in the grass. My feet were planted firmly into the ground. Then flowers began to grow up between my toes and around my feet climbing slowly and twisting around my ankles. Then the flowers turned into God’s hands and He began to rub my feet. When I woke up I felt this warm sensation start at my feet and grow up through my body. It was a deep abiding feeling of love that I had never felt before. For days after this dream I could still feel Gods love washing over me. This was new experience for me because in the past I always had dark and troubling dreams and never in my life did I have a positive and uplifting dream.
It was after this dream that God gave me the word Rooted and I felt deeply rooted in Him and I had never felt that way before. I felt solid and unmovable. It was during this time that God nourished and strengthened me with His own hands. I was growing like a garden lovingly tended. My roots were growing deeply down in Him and He was building me up. It was because God made me lonely that I became His and finally found my Home, my true north, my resting place. It was in the darkness that He held me by the feet and anchored me down in His love.
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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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Journey of fear
Let me begin with a little bit of honesty. I’m never gonna be the poster girl for how I overcame fear in 10 steps. Let’s me be even more honest I’ve never overcome fear but I sure have learned a whole lot about it. I would never say hey come look at what I did to overcome my fears. No I think it would go a little more like this hey look at me let me show you what not to do when it comes to fear. Let me show you what fear can do to you. Fear and I are cozy companions. Honestly I think when I was born I pulled fear out of the womb right along with me. I have sat in the quiet contemplating why have I always felt so afraid all my life. Even as a small child I felt afraid. Quiet and painfully shy. Fear grew inside. I often look at this quiet little girl and wonder what made you so quiet and so afraid before all the abuse you endured. The abuse only made me more afraid It made me retreat further into myself. This is when I first learned to disassociate. I would numb myself out and become very sleepy. I still do this. It’s been a coping mechanism for me. As I got older I began to run away from home. I am a runner and I still run away. I shut down. I quit. I was really good at starting things: new relationships friendships, jobs and never seeing them through. Fear has taken a lot from me and I let it. Fear has been a driving force in my life. It has driven me away from opportunities, possibilities and the good things God had for me. Luke 9:24 says “If you try to avoid danger and risk then you’ll lose everything. If you let go of your life and risk all for My sake, then your life will be rescued, healed, made whole and full.”Because I felt afraid my God became safety. I would do anything to feel safe and by anything I mean nothing. I know that sounds crazy. Let me explain. I stayed inside myself where I knew no one or nothing could hurt me. I never went out. I would never approach you. You’d have to approach me and most people didn’t because I looked unapproachable. Unfriendly and unwelcoming buried under a mound of insecurity. If fear was my constant companion, then insecurity was my best friend. They were the chains that held me down and even now at times like the ghost of Christmas past they come back around swirling around inside my fragmented brain. If a opportunity would come around I would do nothing. It was in doing nothing I lost everything. Just like Jesus said. I closed my door. I read my book. Retreating into isolation and giving birth to depression. The brother of anxiety. Anxiety(which is basically fear) along with worry and depression work together to bury us under oppression and that’s exactly where I was when Jesus came along. Where did fear led me? No where good I can assure you. Much like the story of Lazarus in John 11. John 11:1 says “there was a certain man who was very ill.” I was sick with fear. Fear was killing me. Once a companion now a burial shroud. Once I believed fear kept me safe inside its cozy cocoon now my pulse had slowed, my mind was numb and I didn’t even realize I was buried alive. How you ask can you not realize you are buried alive? Slowly over time. The more I disengaged the more unaware I became. I had become the one Jesus loved who was very ill. In John 11:3 “the sisters immediately sent a message to Jesus which said, Lord the one You love is very ill” I cannot even imagine all the ones who watched me and cried out to Jesus. Help me friend she’s ill. It is the ones who love us. Who watch us. Who try to help us. Who are powerless and fall down to their knees and in a breath of desperation cry out Jesus the one you love is very ill. Another lesson I embark to you: fear doesn’t only effect us it effects the ones we love. And what does Jesus say” His sickness will not end in his death but will bring glory to God. Could it be that my story, my life wrapped in so much fear could bring glory to God. Maybe did I need to die in order to come to life. And what did Jesus do. John 11:6 says, “however after receiving this news He waited two more days where He was.” Where was Jesus all these years as I battled fear. He was there watching, waiting. We must hit a bottom before we reach up. Jesus knows that and sits there watching and waiting. After 2 days Jesus says in John 11:11, “our friend Lazarus has gone to sleep, so I will awaken him. Sleeping in fear Jesus approached my grave. A stone stood before him. What is this stone that buried me alive? The past. A little girl pushed down by fear. A little girl with no one but herself to make her feel safe. With her security blankets of : shutting down, running away and disassociation. Now was the time to push the stone of the past away. Jesus lifted his eyes towards heaven, Lazarus come out. I stood up and came out. Jesus said” untie him and let him go. It was time and I was ready to face everything and to recover. It was when I began to work through my past. All the abuse. The neglect, the abandonment . All that had been done to me and all I had done. I began to find healing in God. I began to forgive and ask for forgiveness and fear Let go of me as I began to trust in God. These days fear is still there and at times it still gets the best of me but it’s no longer tied to me. It’s no longer the director of my life. These days I let God guide me for as Isaiah 30:21 says,” I hear your sweet words behind me. Go this way there is your path this is how you should go.” And this path is no longer a path of fear but of trust in the God who called me from the grave and into healing, wholeness and love.A way backSometimes we all get to a point where we’re just ready to throw in the towel. We’ve given all we can give and there’s just nothing left to give. We’re at the end of our rope and we just have to let go. That’s excatly where I was the day I decided I just had enough. Enough of the trouble and conflict of a 5 year relationship. I’m no stranger to leaving. Honestly my hashtag should read #seeyoulater. I was notorious for not seeing things through and hopping from relationship to relationship. It had been my pattern for what feels like all my life. But I felt this time I really had tried my best and it just wasn’t getting any better. In fact it was just getting worse. I just didn’t know what to do anymore so I left. I left in secret up until the moment the Uber picked me up at 3am. He thought I was going for a vacation. Only he didn’t know it was a stay vacation. At the 11th hour he turned to me and said “Your not coming back are you?” I just turned my head in regret and shame. As I sat in the back of the Uber my heart filled with sadness but I pushed it down. Just like I had pushed down every other emotion I’ve felt all my life. My heart whispered “what have you just done” but I pushed that down too as I walked off the plane into the bright sunshine of California 🌞 I think I knew deep in my heart I had just made the biggest mistake of my life though I couldn’t quite see it yet. That evening as I celebrated my sister’s birthday walking the dark streets of West Hollywood everything inside of me shouted “this is all wrong” and I listened. That evening as we settled in for the night and I told my sister how I was feeling. She said,” Just sleep on it.” but I knew in my heart that I just couldn’t. Sometimes you just gotta trust what you know and I knew I needed to go back. I picked up the phone to call him and he was so happy that I had changed my mind. With tears in his eyes he welcomed me back with open arms. It reminds me of God and how no matter how many times we lose our way He’s right there welcoming us back with love and through tears.
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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 