Journey Out of Hiding

The hiding is hiding my true self and trying to paint on the facade a few feet in front of me of what I think you, and God, want to see.  In the world it is worldliness, in the church it is 'good works'.  But the problem is that no matter how well I do all of that, the real me never gets loved and the real me gets very, very tired, and I become a sucker for anything in this world that looks like unconditional love, which will lead me into something that also has to be hidden, like an addiction.  I cannot show the real me, that is too vulnerable, that has been hurt too many times and I'm just not going to let that happen again, if I at all can. So I hide, I fake it, and for me, I go off and cry alone.  Because I am so very alone, even amidst all kinds of approval.  Because the approval isn't for me, it's for my actions, my 'performance' if you will. At least that is what I think.  I think my true self is a mess, but what I have not been aware of most of my C...

Didn't wake up sad today.  Kept wondering is this real?  Couldn't find any shame. Began asking God, "What do I think about then?  I really didn't know what to do with this." There was a beautiful sunrise that drew me outside to walk and watch it. There was little water in the field glistening back at the sun. Thought to put on a song that talked of the Father singing over me. The season I'm in right now it's being exposed all l I didn't get from earthly fathers, so this song, what my heavenly Father does give to me is part of changing the affects of those events.  On the surface I sing with the song, "I open up to you Father, I receive your love."  Okay, but the longer I do it the more upset I get.  I think things like, 'don't go there, (emotions) you're not supposed to give in to those feelings.' But my spirit then says. 'No, that's not right. I don't have to fake it to this Father, He is good and He's...

Someone once said, "Do not judge your life by one day."  Oh, how true this is.  Think of judging all of life by Jesus hanging on the cross... we've all felt that, all of our hopes dashed against the rocks of circumstances. In the Bible there is a description of this, "hope deferred makes the heart sick". But what about when He was then risen? Over 500 people saw Him risen.  Can you believe it was that many?  I was surprised by they number.  We live in a fallen world and we suffer the effects of evil, but that never is the final story of our lives if we are saved, thanks to Jesus. I look so often at how things look today, judging people's behaviors, finances, measuring whether we are 'succeeding'. Who gets to say what 'succeeding' is anyway?  How the world views success?  Did you know that God never gave us the right to judge?  That was a fall out from the fall, or the great gasp as one pastor describes it, like a fish out of water. Before t...

I went to set my coat down and I noticed this picture in tihs unfamiiar place, its of a little girl dresssed in adult cloths from another era, I thought, she's very cute.  Not from myself, I understood, "You (the Abba Jesus talked about), You see me like that". It was a cool thought. My internal response? 'Yeah, yeah, God loves me, big deal, I 've got other things on my mind", hurts maybe?  When I got to pick up my coat I knock the picture over and as I notice it face down a tronger impression hits me... "He wants me to look at this picture, to really look.  So I getntly set it back in its place gazing at it. It is a little girl dressed in the old cloths of a lost and beautiful age where they dressed up more than we do today, but she is gazing at a rose; a long stem lying in her lap, and I remember, I quietly exclaim, "He remembers me, He remembers me." I walk away slower now, it's a moment between Abba and I, in the space of this mad and m...

I heard someone say the reason we should be going to be around people, is just simply looking forward to getting to be around them, without any expectations. Hopefully there will be some laughter, sometimes there will be some tears. The only way I could not look for there to be a need meet from someone else is when I began to learn that God had already come to meet all of my needs. Here's just a couple of the miriad of verses even way back in the Old Testament that speak of God's kind intentions toward us:  "For I am the Lord your God, who upholds your right hand, which says to you, "Do not fear, I will help you.". Isaiah 41:13  Then He was talking about Jesus in 42:1 when He said this "Behold, My servant, whom I uphold; My chosen one in whom My soul delights."  When Jesus was here, He lived a perfect life, a sinless life. Then He died on cross, on purpose, and in our place.  He exchanged His life for ours.  That perfect life He lived, He exchanges it...

Some months after this leaving so many things in His lap time, some circumstances changed in my life and I hit a wall. I've heard people say that in the counseling office, but I didn't quite know what they meant, now I do.  It exposed some grieving that I had never done. It seems so much easier and better to leave grief behind than to feel it.  But God knows better. I was given the opportunity to then deal with the pain that had been exposed, I could have said no, I even tried sometimes. It's very probable that this was at the root of those other beliefs that needed changing. I wish I could explain everything that this looks like, but I could never write it all down. And also, because each one of us will process things differently. Each of our journeys are our own, and He is the path to peace and an abundant life. John 10:10 says, The thief comes to steal kill and destroy, but He came (Jesus), that we might have life and that more abundantly."  He is with you right w...