Little girl hiding….

Isaiah 55: 1-2
“Is anyone thirsty?
Come and drink—even if you have no money!
Come, take your choice of wine or milk—it’s all free!
Why spend your money on food that does not give you strength? Why pay for food that does you no good? Listen to me, and you will eat what is good. You will enjoy the finest food.

Rest- an intimate movement to receive.

It has been said that spiritual rest is a journey of awakening our hearts to fully receive…..it’s easy to talk about rest, it sounds so easy doesn’t it?

But in all honesty rest, true, deep, soulful rest doesn’t come easy for me. Sure I have had peaceful moments, yet I really haven’t held onto them long enough to make rest my soul’s everyday home.

David in the Psalms talks about his need for deep, soulful rest:
You desire truth in the innermost being, and in the hidden part You will make me know wisdom. (Psalm 51:6)

In my innermost being, in those hidden places inside, rest has eluded me…. because in truth I have always worked so hard to rest.
Yet God desires that in our innermost places we find rest in Him, but I find it scary, because I prefer safety over intimacy.

This morning God brought to mind a memory of my father, my birth father.
I didn’t know what to do-my birth dad, along with my siblings, were visiting. I knew they had come to see me but as my father and my aunt and uncle sat at the table enjoying steaming mugs of coffee and my siblings enjoying my aunts baking, I stood off to the side. Uncertain. Tentative. Hesitant. Cautious. Timid.
Do I go and enter into their conversation, becoming a part of their family? I could see the longing and the sadness in my father’s eyes as he watched his daughter from a distance…..his little girl whom he longed to hold and cherish…..but I didn’t know what to do….and so I remained at a distance, watching.

I knew my “adopted” family-my aunt and uncle whom I called mom and dad- were torn as well….they were raising me as their daughter and yet they knew that this man before me was my birth father….and so I stood there torn, undecided, unsure of what to do……do I please them or do I please my father…..do I do what I want to do…..instead I did what came natural to me…..I ran, I hid….shielding myself from disappointment and from pain.
The little girl within me at such a young age felt so conflicted…..what began then has continued into my adulthood. The conflict between what I want and what I ought to do has conflicted within my innermost being….the deep place where God says He desires truth….the hidden part where He desires to bring freedom.

In hiding, the little girl found her place of rest…..because the unknown was too frightening, the pain was too great, the fear too daunting and the emotions too overwhelming……trust became ever increasingly difficult for me….all those feelings locked inside my heart that day. And every time my father came to visit after that day I would find myself torn once again. And I didn’t realize until now that those feelings froze inside me that day.

Some of the stories I have viewed as childhood memories are actually still “live events” hidden behind the wall in my heart….the wall that I thought was gone but some of it still remains.
As I looked back at the memory this morning asking God what He desires to speak into my heart from it….I hear Him whisper “come”. Such a simple word….and yet…..

Too often instead of trusting God, allowing my brokenness to bring me to Him, a battle ensues and I find myself running away from the things that break me….not willing to look at the parts of my life that are not at rest…..my appeasing, my fear of speaking truth, my caring too much of what people think, my desires to please people, my fear of letting people wrestle with their own pain knowing I can’t make it better, not being good enough, not being enough period……and just like I did as a young girl I feel trapped at times.
What should I do? What will happen if I do one thing or the other? What will happen to my father, what will happen to me?

A part of me that day wanted to run and jump into my father’s arms, nestling into that place of safety with the man who desperately wanted to love his little girl, to wipe away the tears that glistened in his eyes as he watched me from a distance as he longed to be my daddy….but we both felt awkward that day, both of us uncertain of our places, we both had hearts breaking for the other and ourselves…..and so we remained at a distance, neither of us willing to step into that sacred space, both reacting from our wounds and adding fresh wounds to our already fragmented hearts…..

As I look back my mind goes to the “what if’s”…..what if neither of us cared about the world around us, what if neither of us cared about what was right or wrong but of relationship….what if we shook off the fear and embraced truth…. the “what if” lingers still….

I can’t go back, how I wish I could….how I wish my father had been a braver man, how I wish I hadn’t been a fearful child…..
But life doesn’t always turn out like the movies or a fairy tale does it….instead two people that day, one an adult and one a child, had their hearts split apart that day…..we both ran, it may have looked different for each of us, but we both ran….to our place of safety.

All this running is exhausting…..

Whenever I stop and face the silence I have to face the truth….I am suspicious of a restful life. My heart learned very early that it is safer to hide than to stay open long enough to receive…..divided between what I desire and what I fear.

If my aunt and uncle would have given me permission and freedom to fully receive from my father the heart of that little girl would not have been fragmented that day….but it didn’t turn out that way.

So where does that leave me today-it leads me to the place where God is inviting me to come, to stop my running, to allow Him to enfold me in His arms, to find soul rest~ that intimate place of rest where I’ve ever dared to believe is possible…..a place of comfort…..abundance……delight……of truth……

Do you find it hard to rest? To receive? When do you find your soul at rest?

The Journey Begins…..

There I was, sitting on the floor with my face nuzzled into my big, black puppy’s neck, sobbing…..pain from somewhere deep within finding its way to the surface….

My big puppy stoically allowed me to let it all out…finally turning to me when the tears were spent and gave me a big, sloppy lick on my face as if to say, I’m here and it’s going to be okay, we will play again when you are ready. I couldn’t help but smile…yes; I want to play again….

An imbalanced life….that’s how I felt that day…..but it is risky to stop and investigate the whys and how did I get here? Why do I feel so stressed? No one wants to feel this way; no one wants to feel alone and desolate….

Desolate- now there is a word that you don’t want to identify yourself with. How can you find rest for your soul in a place such as this? But this was the place within me that I hid from, ran from even…..the places where stress, anxiety and fear overtake….robbing me of my moments….and yet, it is to a desolate place where Jesus went to meet with God. It’s the place he retreated too….it is where he found his quiet time.
“But Jesus often withdrew to lonely [desolate] places and prayed. Luke 15: 16”

In that moment of vulnerability with my head buried in the soft fur of my puppy, God showed me where He wanted to take me…..He was asking me to “follow” Him to this place of discovery~to “quit” being afraid of what others think! Ouch….do I want to go there…umm, no, but I know I should, I know I must, in order to find soul rest.

My need to be what other people wanted, needed and expected me to be was far too great to actually allow me to stand up for myself. How is it after all these years I can still find myself defined not by God’s love but by what others think of me?

And so….

follow Him….

I must…..

Psalm 27:7-10
The Message (MSG)
7-9 Listen, God, I’m calling at the top of my lungs:
“Be good to me! Answer me!”
When my heart whispered, “Seek God,”
my whole being replied,
“I’m seeking him!”
Don’t hide from me now!
9-10 You’ve always been right there for me;
don’t turn your back on me now.
Don’t throw me out, don’t abandon me;
you’ve always kept the door open.
My father and mother walked out and left me,
but God took me in.

It’s time for a change….

 It’s time for a change….and not just in the design of my blog….but in the design and rhythm of my life.

Have you ever said “I quit”? I have. I have said it quietly while in tears, I’ve shouted it from a place of absolute frustration, I said it in desperate resignation….and I’ve meant it every time…..and yet, too often I find myself right back to the very place where the words buried in my heart once make their way once to the surface.
I quit, it doesn’t sound very Christian does it? But the quitting I am talking about isn’t about weakness and giving up in despair. It’s about strength and choosing to live in truth. It will require the death of illusions….no longer pretending….quitting for me is about choosing.
It involves quitting those things that are damaging to my soul, or to the souls of others, it then frees me to choose other ways of being and relating that are rooted in love and lead to life.
Things like:
-quit fearing what others think and choose freedom
-quit faulty thinking and choose to live in reality
and there are more that I desire to unpack as I begin this new journey.

Author Bonnie Gray, in her book: Finding Spiritual Whitespace says the following:
“I believed my faith buried my hurt in the past, but I was using faith to hide from the past . . . What’s worked for me since I was a child – staying strong, reading more Scripture, praying more fervently, exerting more self-discipline, applying greater optimism – isn’t going to solve this problem. Jesus has been whispering one phrase into my heart – follow the current downstream. I’ve rowed my boat upstream for so long, I didn’t know if I could stop.”

Whitespace….I like that word.

Finding spiritual whitespace isn’t about carving out an hour of time to escape the things that stress us. It’s the opposite. It’s getting away from everything we do to distract ourselves from all the hidden pieces — in order to nurture our soul.
For the last year I found myself in a place where I ran out of words. I no longer had anything to say and God felt so far away. I gave up reading….both books and the Word to a degree.
Even though I knew I ought to pray, praying felt like another check box that left me feeling guilty.
Life is complicated isn’t it?

This past year I have looked at my everyday life, both at work and home, and I have felt overwhelmed with dilemmas, conflicting desires and needs, which left me feeling discouraged.

Ironically, when we’re most stressed, we often deprive ourselves of what we need most: God’s goodness.
Somehow, we’ve learned we deserve to rest only after we solve our problems…..

But the truth is that it is just the opposite.
We need God’s tender, loving care and we need to give ourselves permission to receive and enjoy it.
Unconditionally.

My friends, in this day and age, rest is radical.

It takes the walls down; allowing us to become real, authentic, human, and spiritual.

Bonnie Gray again says:
“We become real, vulnerable, open with our weaknesses, not just our strengths.
Rest brings us closer to each other, to strangers who become friends and to God because our hearts are tender and vulnerable.
I want to bring this message of rest with my whole heart,so I’m letting go of expectations. Saying the harder “no” to expectations, performing, dysfunctional relationships –and saying “yes” to finding spiritual whitespace.”

I am finding myself stressed, overwhelmed and feeling lonely among the chaos of life in our digitized, fast-paced world of wonderful technology — which I love and enjoy –but I know I need a shot of soul rest.

I need slowing down.

I want to write to the rhythm of rest. I want to write out of a heart fully alive, engaged.

You are welcome to journey with me….Let’s see what God will speak to us and through us during this time….

 

 

The Power of our Words….

As you can see I have taken a hiatus from blogging for awhile, not because I haven’t had anything thing to share, not because my heart isn’t still passionate to see women and men find freedom and walk in victory through Jesus, but because it feels like God has taken me through a season of pruning….a season of trusting, of walking by faith not by sight, a season of aloneness…..and I continue trusting Him as He is giving me just enough light for the step I am on.

But I am back now and hope to share more of His heart with you….more of my self with you…..and trusting that He has a purpose for all things.

I’d like to share something different from what I normally do… the following is from author, Holley Gerth, and her words are powerful for us women….words that need to be heard.

Women, I am sure we are all guilty of this at some point in our lives. We need this reminder to support and love each other. We need to take the gentler path and offer grace to each other.
I pray we can stop our critical and dismissive behavior and words because the truth is: God loves us all equally! There is no competition for God’s love!
What she shares is true, beautiful, convicting and real….

From Holley: “I sit at a junior high lunch table feeling self-conscious about my braces and wondering if I will ever have a boyfriend. My thoughts are interrupted by a group of girls behind me. “Oh, she wants to be cool but she’s not,” says one. The others laugh and add similar remarks. My back stiffens and I stare ahead, sure they’re talking about me.

But then someone says, “Shh, here she comes.” A girl slides into a seat next to the rest of the group and they welcome her like they’re all BFFs. She has no idea she’s just been the topic of conversation. Or does she? Somewhere deep inside her, doesn’t she realize that if her group talks about everyone else then of course at some point it’s going to be her turn too?

The only way to make our sisters feel truly, deeply, heart safe is to never talk critically about anyone. No gossip. No condemnation. No judgment. Not even disguised as a prayer request. Is this hard? Oh, honey. But it’s one of the greatest gifts we can offer to each other.

Yes, you will have times when you will have a genuine concern about someone and you will need to process it verbally with someone else in order to help that person, resolve a disagreement, or for another worthy cause. I’m not talking about those times–that’s a whole post on its own. I’m talking about when we tear down our sisters as a type of entertainment. For a moment we feel less insecure, more powerful, included. We suddenly feel more value when we say, “Did you know…?” and follow that phrase with the latest juicy tidbit.

But after the temporary sense of belonging wears off we walk away wondering, “What do they say about me when I’m not there?” Expect that your friends talk about you in the same way they do everyone else in their lives. And expect that they will imagine you do the same. Telling someone, “But I would never say anything like that about you” is little reassurance.

Let’s start a new movement, friends. Instead of women being known for talking behind each other’s backs, what if we were known for having each other’s backs? Jesus said, “By this everyone will know you are my disciples, if you love one another” {John 13:35}. That includes our words.

Years ago I wrote the commitment of words above and I still hold tight to it today. I want you to know you are safe with me. You are safe with (in)courage. You are safe with each other. We are not that lunch table in junior high. We never have been and we never will be. Everyone is welcome but words that wound are not allowed. No, ma’am.

So come in, sister, sit down and share your heart. We want to hear. We want to know you. We want to cheer you on. And when you stand up and take a step forward in faith, you can be sure we’ll have your back wherever God asks you to go.

XOXO

Holley Gerth

http://holleygerth.com/