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: god
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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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Forgiveness
Forgiveness : one of the hardest things to practice yet one of the things we need to practice over and over day after day. Come on we are all fallible human beings living among fallible human beings. Most times intentional yet you feel the hurt. A short tone. A roll of the eyes seem so harmless yet you never know what stories people quietly carry beneath their smile. And these are the unintentional hurts. Can I even began on the true atrocities that destroy the human spirit. Rape Murder Racism Adultery and the list could go on and on. If you cant forgive these smaller pains how will you ever forgive the big ones. Surely never on your own. When I look to God can I even do the things He requires of me. Things like not holding a grudge. Sitting in the pain. Not fighting back. Not making them feel my pain. You’ve been there you know how impossibly hard that is when everything inside of you is screaming I want to hurt you back. Can you sit in that messy hellish emotion and let it pass and give it to God? Can you really give it to God? Can you sit there when someone is yelling at you and not yell back? Can you separate that person from their sin against you and say as Jesus did Father forgive them for they know not what they do. It is humanly difficult but not impossible. It requires surrender and acknowledgement that we our Gods and God has our back and will settle the score the way He chooses to. It requires letting go. Letting go of our rights. It requires giving God your hurt and pain. It requires letting God heal your heart and treating that person who hurt you with kindness. Its not a one time deal. It’s a process and sometimes you have to forgive over and over even for years depending on your pain. Its not an easy choice but it is the right choice. Possibly one of the hardest choices of your life yet one of the most healing loving choices you can make for yourself to restore peace into your life.
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Hiding among baggage
God has called you to great things. I will say it again YES God has called you to great things. In 1 Samuel 9:21 God has found His man. The man He wants to be king. Out of all the men God choose this one man to do the job. Saul’s response: I come from the smallest of the tribes and I belong to the poorest of the family. Did you hear that God says you’re the man Saul and Saul says that’s great and everything God but hello do you know me Im the smallest and Im the poorest. Boy can I ever relate to Saul. Why is it that we disqualify ourselves. I mean if the God of the universe says you’re the one then surely he knows what he’s talking about. But how many times do we see ourselves through the eyes of all we lack. Like Saul he didn’t see himself the way God did. He saw himself as small and poor. Poor Saul had a major inferiority complex. And I know how he feels. In 1 Samuel 10:22 when Saul is called forth to be presented as the next king. Where was Saul ? No one could find him. But God saw him. God always sees us. God said he’s hiding among the baggage. Wow stop my tracks. Hiding among the baggage. Let that sink in a moment. How many times has God called me to something and Im hiding in my baggage. Holding onto the past. Holding onto those old narratives of who I am. Holding onto the voices that say that I don’t matter. Are you hiding among the baggage? Has God called you to do something? Do you need the perspective of potential? You may be among the baggage. I know I was for a long time but God didn’t leave me there and He wont leave you there either. He loves us way to much to leave us amongst the baggage of all the lies of who we arent. As we find our way to God we begin to see who we really are: loved and we begin to embrace it and live it. It will come little by little step by step with God holding ourvhand leading the way towards all the great things He has for us to be.💜
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I will heal your wounds
Keep watching! I will restore this city and heal the wounds of my people. I will lavish them with peace and stability.”Jeremiah 33:6
Have you ever been in a place of brokenness? A place where you come to the end of yourself. The walls of self-protection no longer comfort you. Here you are a victim of emotional wounds. You taught yourself a long time ago to keep people at a distance. You tricked yourself. You told yourself that you let people close to you, and you did but only so close. You fooled yourself that you had the control but then you sabotaged and pushed those you loved far away. They could only take it for so long and then they turned their backs on you. Then the story you tell yourself became a reality. The narrative that runs through your head that no one can love you. One day you wake up broken and isolated. You are disoriented by all the lies you have been telling yourself, but just ahead is a new place. This is the place of restoration and healing. This is where I was the day God whispered to me. He said, “Mary keep watching. I will restore you and heal you from your wounds. I will lavish you with peace and stability.” He spoke and I pondered. For me it took pushing the one person in my life I loved above all others. The only one who ever showered me with unconditional love. I became so dependent on that love that I made it my god. I couldn’t have enough and when he couldn’t give me more I pushed him away. What I understand now that I never did before is that this love didn’t come from him but from God. God was lavishing His love on me. I just wasn’t in the place where I could receive it. Now I’m on my own away from this man I still love and God is healing me. As soon as I let go f him my healing was immediate and deep and for the first time in my life I do feel restored. It took me reaching to God through loss, through change, through pain. I am thankful for this place of brokenness, for in it I am learning to let go and let God love me completely.
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God still moves
Wow! What a year. We randomly hear people say oh man that was a tough year but this year was unlike any year many of us have ever experienced. This was a year that all of us can honestly say in our hearts that was a tough year. Yet as a believer of Jesus I can say I see the evidence of God all over this year. God is still good and He still answers prayer. At the beginning of this last year months before the pandemic began. I prayed that God would change my heart towards someone in my life. I was living in the past and saw them through a hazy filter of who they use to be and not who they truly were. This was someone I always wanted to be close to but just never was. God took my prayer and answered it in ways I could have never imagined. God took this relationship from a disconnect to the closest relationship I have. God still answers prayers. God uses impossible situations ie like a pandemic and breaths life into it. God does things we could never imagine in ways we just could never imagine. On Sunday as I sat in church we talked about the Evidence of God throughout this last year. It was an empowering time of testimony and worship and I pondered these things in my heart. God is so empowering. He breaths life into the relationships that matter to us in His timing and in His way.💜
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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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Bury the lies
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. 💜
Meditations from the heart 