Belonging!!

As I ran this morning, I was thinking about my blog and the things I am processing though. I came to the title of it and let it roll around in my head for a minute. I seem to spend a lot of time letting things roll around in my head, especially on the treadmill. I guess you could call me a human pinball machine. Things are always rolling around bouncing off the walls of my mind. Sometimes the balls come to bounce off of a wound inside of me and as it starts to bleed I realize that it still hurts. Usually that is a beautiful time for me in the morning b/c what God causes to bleed He heals. So things start rolling around in my head and before lone they are bouncing off the walls of my mind until they find the spot God wants to put His finger on. When I realize ouch that hurts, I have to surrender to it and ask God to rip off the scab so it will bleed and He can remove the infection. Once the infection is released an amazing thing happens; it is healed and it no longer hurts. I am able to release it and the weight of whatever pain I have been carrying is relieved and amazingly it doesn't hurt nearly as much as I thought it would to look at it again and let it go. Pushing pain down and denying it hurts so much worse than letting it bleed and go away. It really blows my mind how much this parallels with the real healing process. Several years ago my precious husband became very ill and spent 12 days in the hospital. He just kept getting sicker and sicker no matter how many antibiotics they gave him and the wound on his foot just continued to get worse. They could not figure out what it was or how to make it go away. He was on 3 different IV antibiotics, the strongest ones there are and still no progress. I really thought He might die. Of course, we didn't really let on to anyone else how bad it was b/c we didn't want people to worry too much. As it turned out, it was a staff infection. It was a really strange infection in that it did not start on the outside as s wound, but started inside and worked its way out. They finally took him into surgery and opened the wound in his foot up to debrief it and clean it out. The amazing thing is that, after 11 days of being sick and only getting sicker, once the foot was opened and the infection released out of it, he went home the next day. As long as the infection was trapped inside, he could not get better. Once it was exposed and released he recovered and got to come home.

Oh Lord, let us be willing to let you debrief our infected wounds that are killing our hearts and our existence. Please come into my life and the lives of all those whom you have put into my circle and extended circle and open us up. Rip off the scabs so we can bleed and recover. It hurts, but the freedom and wholeness is so worth the pain. Make us willing and courageous so we would go deep into our hearts and souls with you and sort and process and be redeemed, restored, and set free.

Please, if you are reading this, hear what I am saying. It is so much better to get free from the denial and just let it out. Don't push it down anymore; ask God to show you and make you willing where you are unwilling so that He could work and make you all that He intends you to be. So that nothing would keep you from KNOWING HIM AND MAKING HIM FULLY KNOWN. I read a quote that I have never forgotten; it has resonated inside of me and become a prayer and an anthem to me. "The glory of God is man fully alive." Oh, that we could be fully alive in him. Oh, that we could be free from the deadness of heart and anesthetized existence that plagues the world and the church, especially the people of God; we should be the most authentic, sincere, alive, and loving people on the earth, and we are not. When we deny and hide the truth, we cannot be free; we cannot be fully alive. I heard Matt Chandler preach something one day that I have never forgotten; it has really shaped me and has effected me every since. "When we are hiding, lying and denying, we cannot be used in the creative capacity that God endowed us with; we are using that creativity to hide, and cover. When we stop hiding and covering, when we start living authentically, then the creativity can be used as it was intended to be used, not in the distorted manner we have learned to use it. Authenticity starts with embracing where you are, at that moment. It means being honest about where you are instead of trying to be where you "should be". Shoulda, woulda, couldas will kill our soul and our effectiveness. Oh, that we could all reach the place where we understand that God sees us, all that we are or are not, all that we think and feel. Some of us are still with Adam and Eve hiding behind fig leaves, as if he can't see our nakedness underneath. Come on, God sees it all. If you are angry with God he knows it, stop denying it. If you feel like you got a raw deal, or that things did not turn out like you wanted them to or even that God betrayed you, don't you realize that He knows it anyway so stop pretending that you don't feel it. That is religion, it is false, like the pharisees that Jesus called whitewashed sepalchars. I know, I used to dwell there. I used to feel like I had to put on a face for God and for His people. The truth is God would rather you cuss him out and scream and yell at him, if that is how you feel. At least if you scream at him, you are being real and open and there in that place God can meet you, deal with you, heal you. If you are not being honest, he cannot really bring your heart out of it. The denial paralyzes you. The honesty is not for Him; he knows it anyway; the honesty is for you, for your freedom. Stop pretending and come as you are. Come angry, broken, struggling, addicted, come as you are. When we are lost, we don't seam to have a problem coming to Him as we are; then something happens, once we know Him and we stop coming to Him as we are in our brokenness; we put on a face for Him.

We have to get authentic. We have to be able to be where we are and invite God into it. He will come and He will work. When we are struggling, depressed, angry, grieving, confused, we must ask Him into that place. We need His help to get out of it anyway. Stop trying to pull yourself up and out; stop with the self sufficiency and striving. Just be where you are and ask Him into that place. He will come in, rip of the scabs, let it bleed, set us free and make Himself clearer and more real to us, right in our brokenness and need for Him.

I know for me, when I was struggling with my alcoholism and knowing that I was not in God's best for me, yet unable to find the strength to get out of it, He came to me. I cried out to him for months, and sought Him with tears while I continued to fall. He met me there. He worked in me there. I learned so many amazing things during that really dark place in my walk. On the outside it appeared I was falling apart and going backward, but God was there in the middle of it, working. I didn't try to make excuses to Him; He knew that truth of where I was and what was going on. Addiction really is a form of idolatry. I bowed to the false God, yet in my heart I cried out to the living God, the Savior of my soul. In my darkness, He worked and walked with me and then the dawn came and I walked out of that dark period holding His hand. I looked back and saw that He had been there all along. I can remember, when we first started going back to church, I would sing the songs, but they seemed so false to me. The words were not a reality to me. I had not been living as if He was my all and all, as if He was the breath I breathe. I hate to be false or inauthentic. I do not want to be found a hypocrite. I don't want to be a white washed sepulcher. I have a passion to be real. So the only thing I knew to do was pray and ask God to bring me back to the place where those words were not just words, but they were truth. I asked Him to change my heart so that when I sang, I was singing from my heart not just mouthing words. I never want it to be said of me that I, "bring sacrifices to God, but my heart is far from Him." Oh Lord, never let is be so. Before I knew it, I realized He had answered my prayers; I began to realize that the words I sang at church were, once again coming from my heart, not just my mouth. He is so faithful to meet us right where we are at; when we are willing to approach Him in truth, no matter what that truth is, just as we are, He meets us there.

"The time is coming when those who worship God will worship Him in spirit and in truth."

Bring Him your truth, not matter where that truth may currently be. He will meet you in that truth and bring you to His truth.

"Then you shall know that truth and the truth will set you free."
"He is the way, the truth, and the life."
"He who the Son sets free, is free indeed."

He is not the source of truth; HE IS THE TRUTH!!!!!!!!!!!


Another rabbit trail, as usual. Surely, everyone is used to that from me. Maybe eventually I will get enough of the mass of stuff I am full of out so that I can write about a topic without running in a million different directions.

Belonging

Back to belonging. Hopefully, this will be short. As I pondered belonging, I realized that as I have been searching all of my life for a place to belong. The place to belong has been with me all along. I belong in my heart with God. It is no longer a destination. It has nothing to do with where I am physically or who I am with. I has nothing to do with the circle I run with, who my friends are, where I go to church or who I am married to. Belonging has to do with being found in God. It is my heart in love with Him and full of Him, surrendered to Him and walking with him. I found a place to belong, it is right here with me always in my heart. I belong everywhere. Where ever I find myself, where my heart is, I belong. I don't have to be insecure or struggle to fit in anymore, b/c fitting in has nothing to do with what people think or say about me; it has nothing to do with what I wear, where I live, how much I weigh, what I do. It has to do with belonging to God and being true to my heart, true to the heart He has given me. I belong everywhere b/c belonging is not external, it is internal. It is a destination we find when we go with God and look inside. Now instead of trying to fit it and get a sense of belonging or validation from others, I can spend my energy helping other people feel like they belong. I can reach out and love, encourage, and serve. My hands can reach out not to grasp to pull myself up or make myself feel better, but to give someone else a hand up, to encourage them to belong, to give them a sense of dignity, grace, destiny, and purpose. I can use my creativity and strength to bring life and hope to those who can't see it for themselves.

I am fortunate to have brought to a place where I like myself. I have a sense of value and dignity for myself. That is not pride or arrogance. It is finding wholeness and fulfillment in God. I didn't always like myself. As a matter of fact, I can remember looking in the mirror and saying to myself, "I hate you." I despised myself. I saw no value in myself at all. I have reached a place where I love and accept myself. I like who God has made me to be and who He is making me to be. I like my temperament, my gifts and abilities and even my struggles. I am amazed that at what God has been able to do in my life and how he created me. I am so thankful for my life and everywhere that I have walked b/c it has brought me to this destiny. I have found beauty, purpose, hope and an eagerness for what the future may hold. I thank God that He taught me to love myself b/c it allows me to love others as well. It allows me to accept people forwho they are and where they are and to learn every day to be more gracious. B/c I can see value in me, I can value all humanity around me. Each one of us is created in the image of God and therefore, a valuable treasure. We need to dignify each individual around us and value them as a unique creation of God that He loves and values and sees as beautiful; each person is a person Jesus died for. Oh that we could love as Jesus did.