When things change
Something new is going on again.
Every time something changes stuff gets stirred up, at least now I know it when it is happening. Well, I did at first. The change from excitement to real dread was so drastic, but now, just a couple months later, the dread is getting normal again. I don't want to let that happen. This change, it is supposed to be a good thing. It will be a good thing. It probably is a good thing right now, only all I keep feeling is terror and all I keep doing is avoiding it.
It has brought up some pretty scaring things, I have been taking those to God, talking to Him about them, facing the fears or whatever the emotions and inviting Him into the scary. Begging Him to change me so this doesn't seem so true. Some books have come along during this time, the sense being, "I must do this now, no matter what I avoid to do it." They have saved my life, teaching me truths about God I needed in this place of new things, change that always excites, then terrifies and then the 'here we go again'.
But today I woke up and didn't know what to do, there was no ability to do the new thing, and no clear direction to do anything, no desire to be close to God. I prayed anyway, sat in His lap. I just know by this time that I can't do life without Him, but still no connection. I don't need a connected feeling to go on about my life but I was really floundering today. Listening to a guy talk tonight at a class from the Biblical counseling center, his name is Bill Ewing and he wrote a book called Rest Assured. He said that sometimes we get separated from God abit, not that He can ever leave us, just that it feels like He does. Sometimes it is because we are trying to do something on our own, and God lets us do it, until we get tired of it, fed up you might say and call out to Him, help me, I can't do this alone. I've done that with this but tonight was deeper.
From the class I got a lot of confirmation that I was doing the right thing, but I got some correction too, that I needed to change direction a bit. Someone else I was listening to today, (Paul Young who wrote The Shack) said that when we get certain kind of abuse in our childhood we loose the ability to be able to tell the difference from constructive criticism and character assassination. He did not say it that strongly, but it feels that strong. He said when he was newly married and his wife had occasion to direct how he did something, like separate the laundry, whites from the darks before washing, he would literally just freeze up. Freeze up. She'd ask him what was wrong and all he could say was nothing because he couldn't think anymore. What was going through his head though was, "You loser, why did I ever marry you." That's how it can feel when hearing correction from the church or teachers, or even counselors and friends. It's because we got hurt as children, it's not because they are actually saying we are a loser. I had to spend a lot of time listening to Holy Spirit remind me to tell myself there is now no condemnation for me in Christ Jesus, so I can let some good correction come in. I am grateful.
On the way home I was asking Holy about the teaching, what could he remind me about it. It came about the stuck I feel in this new thing, and this particular new thing will just not happen at all if I do not move it. This is not a new baby that will cry until I take care of it, creativity will be silent. I'm the only one knowing if I did it today, or avoided it today. And avoiding it is uncomfortable, it does not fit, but going into it is uncomfortable too. How do I know which one is right?
I was reminded in that class of this wonderful help that God put into scripture, Phil. 2:13. It says, "For it is God who works in you both to will and to act according to his good purpose." The message version says it this way, "That energy is God's energy, an energy deep within you, God himself willing and working at what will give him the most pleasure." They said this is God's help when we get 'stuck'. When God is asking us to do something we just don't have within ourselves to go and do. I am being reminded that I know this one, I've relied on Him before, for every decision, every breath seemingly. When I was deep in depression and it was one breath at a time that I leaned on Him and He lead me out of it. I remember now, He's helped so many times. This example was of a close friend who had been sexually abused, a lot. At a point in the healing she knew it was time to forgive her abusers. She told her friend, "I just don't have it in me." But as she stayed open to God, talking to Him about it, because He is gentle, tender and infinitely aware of our weaknesses and does not mind them. In fact, He does not fault us for them, He understands better than we do why our weaknesses and stuck places, are there, better than we do.
Because of this she kept talking to Him. He brought to her this verse and she stood on it; she agreed with it. That means she took it as her assurance that He would give her the 'want to', the energy to do this thing she could not on her own. She began simply by telling God that she was willing to be made willing to forgive her abusers. And it came. She was able to forgive and then get free. You see, unforgiveness places the victim in the jail cell, while the perpetrator goes free. That's why God knows it's so vitally important that we forgive. In the unforgiveness, we can't receive His healing for the wounds they gave us. In unforgiveness, we are waiting for and demanding they, the perpetrators, the ones who stole from us in the first place, pay us back. But they never can; never. No matter even if they do finally say, "I'm sorry", it does not heal the hurt. Only God can do that, and only after we forgive.
He is infinitely desirous of seeing us free, of healing our wounds, just so we can enjoy relationship with him. So he'll press at the things that are binding us up; and sometimes that hurts.
Back at my conversation with him tonight. What finally came out was that this thing brought along with it triggers back to times that I got hurt doing something that got me attention. When I was very young and got myself noticed, one bad thing happened, and I vowed I would not get noticed again. I would instead just do what people wanted; a prescription for a pain filled life and I wouldn't suggest it. Then another time I got noticed and got molested, another, nail in the coffin of don't get noticed. Then there was moving here. To a place I knew no one, and nothing, and 'no where' was were I lived. What specifically came to mind was a day I was driving through the corn and soybean fields for miles, which I enjoy now, but that day it felt as if I was trapped in a cage and the cage was planet earth. I was terrified and there was nothing anybody could do about it. I cried about this day to him, telling him I know now that this was a good move for us, that I am fuller now than I ever was back home. But then, back at the beginning it hurt a lot, and it did not go away quickly. The fears I had were out of control as I got used to this place, as I ultimately found my niche. The journey, even to healing just takes time, that's all there is to it.
I cried this out to him. Then we talked about something else, then we were back to this memory and this time I listened more, I was able to now after crying out the fear that had been bottled up and hidden away. I was given a choice somewhere along in this conversation. It was to face these fears so I could go into this new thing; frankly this isn't my first attempt to do this thing. I have put this away many times over the years and tried to do something else that would satisfy more quickly or just pacify. I can't find it.
My other choice, and I said it too, was to bury the pain again, just cover it back up, shove it back into hiding. Simply because it hurt too much. But maybe I am looking at it strictly from my own perspective, not knowing how he can or will show up to help me. He's been faithful in the past.
What good parent, if he or she had the ability to, wouldn't cut out what was causing their child pain, wouldn't do it? Well, God is a loving parent. And He does seek out to cut free from us those things that bind us up. They are called lies, all the experiences I mentioned here have one thing in common, they began the lies that are still affecting today, still causing consequences, but He has set me free from those consequences on a cross over 2,000 years ago. He'd like me to get to enjoy it today. I'd like that too. It's going to be worth it.
C.S. Lewis explains it this way... "The terrible thing is that a perfectly good God is in this matter hardly less formidable than a Cosmic Sadist. The more we believe that God hurts only to heal, the less we can believe that there is any use in begging for tenderness. A cruel man might be bribed - might grow tired of his vile sport - might have a temporary fit of mercy, as alcoholics have fits of sobriety. But suppose that what we are up against is a surgeon whose intentions are wholly good. The kinder and more conscientious he is, the more inexorably he will go on cutting. If he yielded to your entreaties, if he stopped before the operation was complete all the pain up to that point would have been useless. But is it credible that such extremities of torture should be necessary for us? Well, take your choice. The tortures occur. If they are unnecessary, then there is no God or a bad one. If there is a good God, then these tortures are necessary. For no even moderately good Being could possibly inflict or permit them if they weren't.
C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed
Every time something changes stuff gets stirred up, at least now I know it when it is happening. Well, I did at first. The change from excitement to real dread was so drastic, but now, just a couple months later, the dread is getting normal again. I don't want to let that happen. This change, it is supposed to be a good thing. It will be a good thing. It probably is a good thing right now, only all I keep feeling is terror and all I keep doing is avoiding it.
It has brought up some pretty scaring things, I have been taking those to God, talking to Him about them, facing the fears or whatever the emotions and inviting Him into the scary. Begging Him to change me so this doesn't seem so true. Some books have come along during this time, the sense being, "I must do this now, no matter what I avoid to do it." They have saved my life, teaching me truths about God I needed in this place of new things, change that always excites, then terrifies and then the 'here we go again'.
But today I woke up and didn't know what to do, there was no ability to do the new thing, and no clear direction to do anything, no desire to be close to God. I prayed anyway, sat in His lap. I just know by this time that I can't do life without Him, but still no connection. I don't need a connected feeling to go on about my life but I was really floundering today. Listening to a guy talk tonight at a class from the Biblical counseling center, his name is Bill Ewing and he wrote a book called Rest Assured. He said that sometimes we get separated from God abit, not that He can ever leave us, just that it feels like He does. Sometimes it is because we are trying to do something on our own, and God lets us do it, until we get tired of it, fed up you might say and call out to Him, help me, I can't do this alone. I've done that with this but tonight was deeper.
From the class I got a lot of confirmation that I was doing the right thing, but I got some correction too, that I needed to change direction a bit. Someone else I was listening to today, (Paul Young who wrote The Shack) said that when we get certain kind of abuse in our childhood we loose the ability to be able to tell the difference from constructive criticism and character assassination. He did not say it that strongly, but it feels that strong. He said when he was newly married and his wife had occasion to direct how he did something, like separate the laundry, whites from the darks before washing, he would literally just freeze up. Freeze up. She'd ask him what was wrong and all he could say was nothing because he couldn't think anymore. What was going through his head though was, "You loser, why did I ever marry you." That's how it can feel when hearing correction from the church or teachers, or even counselors and friends. It's because we got hurt as children, it's not because they are actually saying we are a loser. I had to spend a lot of time listening to Holy Spirit remind me to tell myself there is now no condemnation for me in Christ Jesus, so I can let some good correction come in. I am grateful.
On the way home I was asking Holy about the teaching, what could he remind me about it. It came about the stuck I feel in this new thing, and this particular new thing will just not happen at all if I do not move it. This is not a new baby that will cry until I take care of it, creativity will be silent. I'm the only one knowing if I did it today, or avoided it today. And avoiding it is uncomfortable, it does not fit, but going into it is uncomfortable too. How do I know which one is right?
I was reminded in that class of this wonderful help that God put into scripture, Phil. 2:13. It says, "For it is God who works in you both to will and to act according to his good purpose." The message version says it this way, "That energy is God's energy, an energy deep within you, God himself willing and working at what will give him the most pleasure." They said this is God's help when we get 'stuck'. When God is asking us to do something we just don't have within ourselves to go and do. I am being reminded that I know this one, I've relied on Him before, for every decision, every breath seemingly. When I was deep in depression and it was one breath at a time that I leaned on Him and He lead me out of it. I remember now, He's helped so many times. This example was of a close friend who had been sexually abused, a lot. At a point in the healing she knew it was time to forgive her abusers. She told her friend, "I just don't have it in me." But as she stayed open to God, talking to Him about it, because He is gentle, tender and infinitely aware of our weaknesses and does not mind them. In fact, He does not fault us for them, He understands better than we do why our weaknesses and stuck places, are there, better than we do.
Because of this she kept talking to Him. He brought to her this verse and she stood on it; she agreed with it. That means she took it as her assurance that He would give her the 'want to', the energy to do this thing she could not on her own. She began simply by telling God that she was willing to be made willing to forgive her abusers. And it came. She was able to forgive and then get free. You see, unforgiveness places the victim in the jail cell, while the perpetrator goes free. That's why God knows it's so vitally important that we forgive. In the unforgiveness, we can't receive His healing for the wounds they gave us. In unforgiveness, we are waiting for and demanding they, the perpetrators, the ones who stole from us in the first place, pay us back. But they never can; never. No matter even if they do finally say, "I'm sorry", it does not heal the hurt. Only God can do that, and only after we forgive.
He is infinitely desirous of seeing us free, of healing our wounds, just so we can enjoy relationship with him. So he'll press at the things that are binding us up; and sometimes that hurts.
Back at my conversation with him tonight. What finally came out was that this thing brought along with it triggers back to times that I got hurt doing something that got me attention. When I was very young and got myself noticed, one bad thing happened, and I vowed I would not get noticed again. I would instead just do what people wanted; a prescription for a pain filled life and I wouldn't suggest it. Then another time I got noticed and got molested, another, nail in the coffin of don't get noticed. Then there was moving here. To a place I knew no one, and nothing, and 'no where' was were I lived. What specifically came to mind was a day I was driving through the corn and soybean fields for miles, which I enjoy now, but that day it felt as if I was trapped in a cage and the cage was planet earth. I was terrified and there was nothing anybody could do about it. I cried about this day to him, telling him I know now that this was a good move for us, that I am fuller now than I ever was back home. But then, back at the beginning it hurt a lot, and it did not go away quickly. The fears I had were out of control as I got used to this place, as I ultimately found my niche. The journey, even to healing just takes time, that's all there is to it.
I cried this out to him. Then we talked about something else, then we were back to this memory and this time I listened more, I was able to now after crying out the fear that had been bottled up and hidden away. I was given a choice somewhere along in this conversation. It was to face these fears so I could go into this new thing; frankly this isn't my first attempt to do this thing. I have put this away many times over the years and tried to do something else that would satisfy more quickly or just pacify. I can't find it.
My other choice, and I said it too, was to bury the pain again, just cover it back up, shove it back into hiding. Simply because it hurt too much. But maybe I am looking at it strictly from my own perspective, not knowing how he can or will show up to help me. He's been faithful in the past.
What good parent, if he or she had the ability to, wouldn't cut out what was causing their child pain, wouldn't do it? Well, God is a loving parent. And He does seek out to cut free from us those things that bind us up. They are called lies, all the experiences I mentioned here have one thing in common, they began the lies that are still affecting today, still causing consequences, but He has set me free from those consequences on a cross over 2,000 years ago. He'd like me to get to enjoy it today. I'd like that too. It's going to be worth it.
C.S. Lewis explains it this way... "The terrible thing is that a perfectly good God is in this matter hardly less formidable than a Cosmic Sadist. The more we believe that God hurts only to heal, the less we can believe that there is any use in begging for tenderness. A cruel man might be bribed - might grow tired of his vile sport - might have a temporary fit of mercy, as alcoholics have fits of sobriety. But suppose that what we are up against is a surgeon whose intentions are wholly good. The kinder and more conscientious he is, the more inexorably he will go on cutting. If he yielded to your entreaties, if he stopped before the operation was complete all the pain up to that point would have been useless. But is it credible that such extremities of torture should be necessary for us? Well, take your choice. The tortures occur. If they are unnecessary, then there is no God or a bad one. If there is a good God, then these tortures are necessary. For no even moderately good Being could possibly inflict or permit them if they weren't.
C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed
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