A Psalm For Women

“Shalom, daughters of God!

Your Father is pleased with you.

How good it is to be called to serve in the household of God.

Thus saith the Lord, ‘Give flesh to the Word of life,

break the bread of justice,

feed all who hunger to take their place at the table.

Lift the cup of freedom filled with the saving blood of Christ who lived and died for us all.

The Child of God was born of woman,

God first chose a woman to lead the opening liturgy of the Incarnate Word.

Now every woman ever after shares in the ministry of the women of Galilee.

Now is the day of deliverance.

Now is the appointed time.

You are the good news God proclaims…

women, claim your freedom,

 live your sacred calling

… you are daughters of God.”

WomanWord (Adapted)

I’ve been away from the computer for awhile as I’ve been in the middle of a move. We are all settled in now and I hope that time allows me to write and share more of what is on my heart….where God continues to lead me.

 This morning my heart is somewhat heavy.  I have so many mixed emotions, so many thoughts and not sure how to process them all. If you have followed my story you will know that I was raised by my aunt and uncle….they were the only parents I’ve known.

My uncle passed away several years ago and last night I received the phone call that I knew would soon be coming and I’ve been expecting. My aunt passed away peacefully last night. Strange that even though one expects it we are never really prepared for it. I confess that at the moment when I received the news my eyes welled up with tears but that was a far as they came. I never wept, or gave way to grief. I sense it is in there, but for now I am just allowing the Lord to help me process my heart.

This past summer I was able to spend an afternoon with my aunt. It was a healing time, a joyous time even. We didn’t talk or rehash the past instead I chose to let it all go and focus on the present…. I sensed that she, knowing her time here was limited, was making peace with everyone….with me, with my daughters.

Because of this time together I can honestly look back without regrets. I’ve made peace with my past, with my relationship with her, with what wasn’t and what was. God has healed so many hurts and wounds and He truly restores the years the locusts have eaten. He has blessed me beyond what I could have ever imagined.

In the wee hours of this morning as I reflected on where I am today I am thankful that God has walked this path with me. That He has shown me His love, healing and kindness…..that because of Him I can walk in victory and freedom….because He is the lifter of my head I can walk with confidence and in love….I can look back on this relationship with my aunt, this fractured relationship as it was, no pretense, no judgment, and no condemnation, with forgiveness given and forgiveness sought….and I can’t help but wonder if sometimes who we are today and what we offer to those around us, the legacy we are leaving to our own children and grandchildren, is not because of what we were taught, shown or given but just maybe because of what we never had….perhaps we learn and grow from what we’ve not had or been shown rather than in spite of it.

A Scripture keeps coming to mind as I write this is 1 Corinthians 1:26 to 29 “Remember, dear brothers and sisters, that few of you were wise in the world’s eyes or powerful or wealthy when God called you.  Instead, God chose things the world considers foolish in order to shame those who think they are wise. And he chose things that are powerless to shame those who are powerful. God chose things despised by the world; things counted as nothing at all, and used them to bring to nothing what the world considers important. As a result, no one can ever boast in the presence of God.”

 As a child I was powerless, I was counted as nothing to my family, yet God did not see me as I saw myself or as others may see me…..As it says further down in verses 30 & 31; “God has united you with Christ Jesus. For our benefit God made him to be wisdom itself. Christ made us right with God; he made us pure and holy, and he freed us from sin. Therefore, as the Scriptures say, “If you want to boast, boast only about the LORD.”

Christ makes us pure and holy, and He frees us…therefore we can boast only about the Lord…and that is truly what is in my heart today….Jesus is the One who is my healer, my refuge, my counselor, my advocate, my victor….He alone is the lifter of my head…He allows me to leave a different legacy than the one given to me…He changes our legacies and gives us a new song, a new story, a new life….He is God and He is good!!

As I lay there this morning in the predawn my mind went to my grandchildren, and the joy I feel when they wrap their little arms around my neck to give me a big hug…. and their little voices are music to my ears as they delight because their grandma is here… God has given me a new song, a new legacy….I am thankful…and I am at peace…..

Do you want to know the joy and freedom of having a humble heart? Or do you fear it as I often have? I think we usually use the word humble incorrectly. We use it to mean shame or humiliation, like when we say ‘he had to eat humble pie’. In fact, pride and shame are two sides of the same coin. When I succeed and feel pride in what I’ve done I get no lasting satisfaction from it. That’s because deep inside I know that I could have failed and that I might fail the next time. Pride always has hidden shame crouching inside of it. What goes up must come down.

Humility is a completely different animal. Humility is a prerequisite to knowing God and drawing closer to Him. Listen to this:
Because your heart was responsive and you humbled yourself before God when you heard what he spoke against this place and its people, and because you humbled yourself before me and tore your robes and wept in my presence, I have heard you, declares the LORD. (II Chronicles 34:27 ~NIV)
And this:
He guides the humble in what is right and teaches them his way. (Psalm 25:9 ~NIV)
And this:
For the LORD takes delight in his people; he crowns the humble with salvation. (Psalm 149:4 ~NIV)

Among others, Moses, David, and Daniel were referred to in the Bible as humble men. Each of these men had a close walk with God. They were God’s intimate companions and trusted messengers. In fact, Jesus himself was described as one who humbled himself and became obedient to the Father.

Recently I had the courage to ask God for a humble heart for the first time in my life. To have a humble heart but not a shame-filled one; this is the next step in my journey.

For there is hope for a tree, if it is cut down, that it will sprout again, and that its tender shoots will not cease. Though its root may grow old in the earth, and its stump may die in the ground, yet at the scent of water it will bud and bring forth branches like a plant. —Job 14:7-9 NKJV

I found this little, obscure verse tucked away in Job years ago and I’ve often thought that if I were to write a memoir about my life this is what I would call it…At the Scent of Water.  As I’ve reflected on this verse over the years I am reminded that even though as a young child my innocence was stolen from me, and although it felt like a death blow, my heavenly Father had another plan….beneath the jagged marks, the numbness, the dead soul remained tender buds …. waiting for just the right time to begin to appear, to grow and to bloom.

I’ve always loved water and the analogy it offers. Woven throughout the Scriptures are word pictures of water….one speaks of my Heavenly Father, my Shepherd, leading me to water for rest and rejuvenation.

There is something special about the sound of the ocean and I find my soul is soothed by it. Last spring for the first time I got to swim in the ocean…it was awesome. Then one day when we went to the ocean a red flag was flying warning us that there were dangerous rip tides and undertows and we were to be extremely cautious. This reminded me of the enemy who at times designs rip tides and undertows to take us to the bottom. It’s at times like these that we find it difficult to regain our footing and find the peaceful waters….yet Jesus promises to steady us, to calm us and to right what is wrong.

 Any time I get to spend near a beach or a bubbling brook offers my soul refreshment, inviting me to be still and hear the whispers of the Holy Spirit, summoning me to escape the chaos of the world and to simply sit at His feet and rest.

There is something too about the scent of approaching rain on a summer’s afternoon that whispers to us of God’s promise to refresh our parched souls.

And then there are those times when we feel like we are traveling in or feeling lost in the wilderness….yet it’s at these times as well when the Lord promises to open the door of hope….at the scent of water we become aware of, and begin to come alive, become alert to the endless new possibilities.

Water also speaks of cleansing….I find that there are many times when I need to come before my Lord and clean out my heart so that I can flow more freely with my Father.

How much would our lives change if we desired so desperately to have a passionate communion with Him in which we not only say prayers but in our actions do prayer!!

 I read one time that the Celtic Christians refer to actual places where the veil between the natural and spiritual worlds seems thin…amazing!!

It’s with attentive spiritual eyes we learn to perceive and become aware of those times when God reaches out to us in our Red Sea experiences along our journey. It’s also at those times when we understand in our hearts that He has been there all along….and just like at the scent of water we begin to bud and bring forth branches like a plant…we blossom and flourish, we heal, and bring forth fruit for the Kingdom under the care of our Father. We are not left to die, we are not left to give up, to wither and waste away….we were made for life, we were created to live and live abundantly, to walk in healing and freedom….at the scent of water we bloom once again and offer a sweet fragrance and aroma that is pleasing to our Heavenly Father, the one who created us in His image.

Water offers life to the thirsty….and Jesus, our “Living Water” offers us renewal and new life….He is our life source, our life sustenance and essentially our “very life”!!

I read a wonderful fictional book last year called, Healing Stones, by Stephen Arterburn and Nancy Rue (I highly recommend it and it was like reading my life’s story)…anyway, in it there was a part where the little girl was upset and decided to run away from home. The dad didn’t hurry to go looking for her because he thought she would come back in her own time…when the mom found out she was very upset and said the following; “boys come back….girls wait to be found.”

I found that one line to be very profound and couldn’t quit thinking about it….as women we are made in the image of perfect relationship; we are relational to the core and filled with a desire for transcendent purpose….something magnificent, inspiring and meaningful. As women we want to be needed, desired…we long to be found. We desire to be part of, an irreplaceable part, of a shared adventure .As women we don’t come alive from merely being useful.

There is fierceness and strength even in a woman. Just look at what happens if her child, a friend or husband is being threatened….. At the heart of a woman is a warrior too….but in a uniquely feminine way.

 I remember as a young girl having the desire to be a part of something magnificent, something bigger than myself…I wonder if all young women dream this way….of something significant, sensing that we have a vital role to play, believing there is something in us that is needed and needed desperately…. before doubt and accusation fire their deadly arrows, before the sorrows and troubles of life take aim to kill the desire in us.

 I can’t help but wonder if our Heavenly Father doesn’t desire to be needed as well….. to play an irreplaceable role in our lives….inviting us to share in the adventure with Him…. is this not woven all through out Scripture.

As women we love adventure of all sorts…horseback riding, skydiving, traveling to a foreign country, having children, starting a business, all sorts of things….seeking after God~choosing to be a part of the adventure….an adventure that is shared.

There are times though I confess that what appeals to me most is to live as a hermit, a monk, a solitary person…no demands, no pain, no disappointment because I’ve been hurt, wounded or worn out.

Yet, when I pause long enough and search my heart I realize that I don’t want to run away for very long…..my life, our lives are meant to be lived with others, we are made for connection.

I believe it was in Captivating where Stasi talked about romance novels as being the bestselling novels and the fact that they don’t even have to be great works of literature, but women are buying them up like crazy.

I can’t help but wonder if these authors have tapped into something at the core, at the heart of women….our desire to be pursued and found, to be wooed and fought for, and to be romanced.

And look at the covers on these books; they are women with the perfect endowed figure, clothes suggestively disheveled and hair blowing in the wind. These novels we are told are full of sin and evil because of the feelings and desires expressed. (I’m not condoning it I am getting to a point here)

How many of us are self-conscious, uncomfortable or ashamed by this desire.

 How often do we not diminish it, reduce it to feelings of humiliation, scorn it or criticize it, or simply downplay it. Or perhaps the desire has gotten us into trouble and caused us pain so we do our best to eradicate it and remove it. Or maybe we’ve experienced abuse somewhere in our journey and we fear it.

Yet…. doesn’t it seem that our desire for romance refuses to die? Oh believe me; we may have worked very hard to bury it, shoving it so deep inside that we hope to forget about it, but yet it remains.

 Why are we ashamed or embarrassed by our desire to be romanced? Is it not our Lord who put within our hearts that glorious longing to be romanced? Isn’t it in fact where we bear His image…..God loves romance!! He is the author of romance. It is the enemy who has perverted the purity God gave to us. The entire Word of God is a love story—filled with God’s love for us….and just look around at the sunsets, flowers, the music and the love and you know that God is the author of romance…..

 And as John and Brent have said in The Sacred Romance; “The God who saves is also a God who woos His own to a relationship primarily of the heart. It is possible to recover the lost life of our heart and with it the intimacy, beauty, and adventure of life with God.”

 ”You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.” (Jeremiah 29:13)

God wants to be pursued. And so do we!

 At the risk of being misunderstood I am not saying that being romanced is all that a woman wants…..and I am not meaning that a woman should find the meaning of her existence in whether of not she is being or has been romanced by a man. But I am saying the desire for romance isn’t wrong; it’s God-given.

And yet……if romantic love becomes all that we crave, scripture tells us we’ve missed the boat.

 There’s only one love that is wide enough and deep enough to satisfy: God’s love (Eph. 3).

 I guess what I am getting at is that as women we find freedom when we are authentic, when we can acknowledge that deep in our hearts we long for desire, to be pursued….that at some core place deep within, we want, we desire to be seen, delighted in, and pursued. We long to be romanced by the Creator of our hearts.

May your roots go down deep into the soil of God’s marvelous love. And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep His love really is. May you experience the love of Christ, though it is so great you will never fully understand it.
EPHESIANS 3:17-19

A Victim’s Prayer

Oh God, I am so torn and ashamed….things have happened to me that I wouldn’t wish upon my worst enemy. The wounds I’ve experienced are deep and ugly, I feel stained and abandoned.

Trusting, really trusting another is pretty difficult for me. And if I can’t trust people who I can see how can I trust You?

Questions unnerve me; they jumble around in my mind….not only questions of why You let this happen but questions of why You didn’t rescue me. I am told that You love me…..and as much as I would like to believe that, believe You, the word “love” is so polluted in my heart that it’s hard for me to know what Your love for me may mean.

 In some ways I am afraid of love, God. Yet, I desire love….I need Your love…I want You to reach down inside my fearful, wounded heart, way back behind my defenses and put Your Holy balm upon me. It’s so painful God. It’s so ugly and appalling. I am so ashamed to even think about what happened….can You love me….are You really willing to love me? I have to believe it, because without Your love I fear I may be completely lost and hopeless.

But hope seems like such an elusive word…Yet I need hope…I need Your love….I need You to teach me what it’s like to be loved by You…..please help me to love me…..

Learning how to stand up for the person You created me to be will probably come in time….I know I have not always liked what You created when You made me….I have lived with too much pain to respect me…it’s been a matter of survival for so long….

So I am coming and asking You now, God, to help me….I am taking a risk and reaching out to You…will You come for me…will You heal me…will You give me hope and life again….Amen

I think one of the most difficult challenges, at least I know it was for me, is accepting the fact that God did not set us up for the abuse. Coming to the place where we truly understand and comprehend that it is the perpetrator who always sets up the victim….breaking the agreements made that somehow we are to blame, somehow we asked for it.

And I think just as difficult for many abuse victims is learning to separate God , the loving Father, from the image of father or male as perpetrator. I’d like to take some time and share my heart and my journey how I came to know God as a Father and finally learned to separate Him from my earthly father….and I don’t think I am alone in this.

Although I prayed the above prayer many years ago and God indeed has shown Himself faithful in answering and healing the deep wound of my Father issues, I confess there are still triggers, there are still times when I struggle to not put Him in the same category as my earthly father….when the word love can still be directly associated with the experience of abuse….

“Hope” is what you’ve got left when nothing else is working out right. Taking it to God in prayer, removes the obstacles of alone-ness and worry. If He’ll take care of the lilies of the field, He will take care of me. Sometimes I don’t see His process or His favor; but “hope” keeps me going. Although I KNOW He walks with me EVERY day, His presence sometimes feels far away. In my heart, I KNOW everything will turn out all right; I just have to wait and persevere through ALL life puts me through. “Be still, and know that I AM GOD.” ….. Lord, sometimes it’s just so hard…

“If God can bring blessing from the broken body of Jesus and glory from something that’s as obscene as the cross, He can bring blessing from my problems and my pain and my unanswered prayer. I just have to trust Him.”

Anne Graham Lotz

“What gives me the most hope every day is God’s grace; knowing that his grace is going to give me the strength for whatever I face, knowing that nothing is a surprise to God.” Rick Warren

Hope sees the invisible, feels the intangible and achieves the impossible. –Anonymous

Psalms 39:7 “But now, Lord, what do I look for? My hope is in you.

 Proverbs 13:12 Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.

Jeremiah 17:7 “But blessed is the man (woman) who trusts in the LORD, whose confidence is in him.

1 Corinthians 13:13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

Self trust….. Is it a blessing or can it be something that so easily ensnares us?

For people who have been abused our trust issues have been distorted. We often fear trusting our instincts and our boundary lines become hazy or unclear. Whether as a child or as an adult if we put our trust in someone who abused that trust horribly it leaves us feeling that self care is a trap.

Often we don’t trust ourselves very much when it comes to relationships, and perhaps our track record doesn’t look so good. I read once that if we have neglected self-care for years, which is a common result of abuse, we may not trust our body or our ability to meet our own needs.

So what does the healing of healthy self trust look like? I believe it happens little by little, one event at a time, one step at a time. We gain a small piece of self trust when we see ourselves taking risks to obtain a healthier life. A small piece is restored when we can see that a lot of of our decisions are good ones….. Self trust is increased when we trust our gut instincts and our experiences to assess whether another person is trustworthy.

I love spring and I learn a lot from watching nature….. spring is a time of growth, and change happens in varying forms. Applying that to my own life although I may experience some situations with ease there are other times that I may struggle to break through certain circumstances or situations.

How often don’t we feel that there should be instant growth overnight and thereby putting undue pressure on ourselves? God doesn’t expect instant growth but with Him guiding us & leading us, rebuilding self trust causes a blooming, a renewal, when we journey with Him in the transformation process. Like a beautiful spring that begins to come alive our soul rises and begins to grow with hope and beauty. We begin to agree with God’s perceptions of who we are. We discover that we can be humble without degrading ourselves. That we can accept ourselves because God does and we can use the gifts and talents that He has given us.

Renewal, restoration, regeneration…..is a process and thereby allows me to enjoy each accomplishment, as insignificant as it may seem. Giving myself permission to make mistakes and allow myself to learn from them, rather than being critical of what I haven’t yet accomplished or how I have failed once more. And when I am more forgiving of others’ shortfalls, and express more patience with them than with myself perhaps I need to try treating myself like a friend.

We can trust God first, and reap a harvest of huge growth in trusting ourselves. What happens when we don’t entrust our healing to God? We will often digress from self-trust to being ego-centered. Or we can become selfish, or full of self-pity, or become filled with vindictive anger. While Satan delights in the mess he initiated with our abuse, God waits for us to repent and let Him guide us to the green meadow.

The choice is really ours alone. Someone once said that we can choose to add to the damage that has been done to us by trying to be our own untrained physician or we can choose to surrender our self-trust, self-respect, self-love, self-esteem into God’s capable & skillful hands, trusting that He knows exactly where we are unhealthy, where we need help and how to best attend to each situation and problem.

We can trust Him because He knows us better than we know ourselves….we can say we believe in God but the real question is; do we believe Him??

In case you are wondering I have been extremely busy and unable to write.  I really miss this opportunity to work on my relationship with God ‘out loud’.  He’s still working with me in the mean time, always leading me in the paths of righteousness.  I hope to be able to share my thoughts with you again in a couple of months. 

God bless you!

Lisa

Continuing on …A Captivated Woman
As a little girl I loved to read, and fairy tales were among my favorites. Thumbelina made me cry, Cinderella gave me hope, and I laughed through Snow White delighted by the seven dwarfs. I would gaze at the pictures for hours imagining myself in their fancy ball gowns; dancing with the prince…..fairy tales offered the hopes and dreams of the life I envisioned as a child.
They awakened my heart to the possibilities of adventure, beauty, romance, a different life; the living happily ever after stories.
I think fairy tales awaken something in the heart of all little girls. It caused us to believe that we were meant for a world of splendor and wonder, of safety and protection. One of my favorite fairy tales made into a movie is Cinderella. In this movie and fairy tale I see my heart as a small child, a daughter who was born to be wanted, cherish and delighted in. A child who was born with a song in her heart and radiance in her soul that shone through her eyes. In the fairy tale she was meant to grow into a woman of beauty, courage and gifts; her life a gift to those around her.

But just like Cinderella that wasn’t the world I grew up in….and chances are neither were you.
In the story her prince does come, but first she experiences betrayal, heartache and suffering. As children we don’t understand that part of the story do we, until we are grown.

It’s been a few decades since I was that little girl who devoured those stories. As I look back at the little girl who was stirred by those stories, those fairy tales, it feels like that innocent heart belonged to someone else.

Looking back I see all too clearly how I allowed busyness, the desire to please people, the expectations, all the striving to define me. I even allowed my past, my mistakes, my failures, and the abuse to define who I was. And like Snow White I grew tired and fell into a deep slumber.

Stasi has said in Captivating that as women we still long for intimacy and adventure, we long to be the beauty in a great story, we long for what the fairy tales promise. Yet for many, even though that desire is planted deep in our hearts, it seems elusive because the message that our culture, and sadly even some churches, is that it is granted only to those who have it all together first. And so we are driven to try harder. To perform, to look perfect, to be perfect and in the process we bury our hearts and simply get on with life.

But wait…. I have heard a quiet voice whispering to my heart…..as God softly speaks through His Word my heart awakens and He gives me permission to take care of my heart, that my heart as a woman is the most important thing about me….Proverbs 4:23, “Keep vigilant watch over your heart; that’s where life starts.” (The Message)

And when I read about the creation in Genesis I find that rather than shaping Eve out of dust, the Lord “fashioned” her out of flesh and bone taken from Adam. I love that!!

Does this not make her twice refined??

Is there not a difference between fashioning and shaping? Could it be that fashioning reflects a greater level of creativity and a more refined technique?

Think about it ladies…..you have been created, fashioned by the Creator…you reflect His heart.

Can you hear His voice whispering how much He loves you….your heart matters to Him….from the time we are little girls until now we are on a journey to discover what God meant and had in mind when He created women in His image….our journey begins in our hearts….the journey of desire….the journey as John and Stasi have said; to be romanced, to play an irreplaceable role in a great adventure, and to unveil beauty. And just maybe that’s what the fairy tales were seeking to tell us as well.

Today I am a grandmother and as I read the fairy tales to my granddaughters I get a lump in my throat as I contemplate…. what will their stories will be….and I pray daily for them…I pray that as God writes their love stories it will be the most beautiful fairy tale of all.