It's Not What You May Think

I wish I could say that forgiveness has always come easy for me, or that it always comes easy even now. But that is not so. Granted, it comes more “naturally” in some areas than in others, and as I learn and grow and mature, it certainly gets easier (in all areas).

It is notable that the very topic of forgiveness is a touchy subject for some. Like many other issues, there are times it has been mishandled, misunderstood, and lorded over the hurting without compassion or understanding. As a result, in our quest for healing and freedom, we’d sometimes like to avoid the forgiveness issue.

But if we are to be truly free, we must come to understand and embrace the act of forgiving.

Don’t stop reading please! For those who followed the beginnings of my blog posts on healing and restoration, you know we’ve been dealing with very real and deep wounds (at the bottom of this post you will find the links to all posts pertaining to the subject). Some of us may feel that to forgive is to relieve the offending person of any responsibility and somehow sweep their offense under the rug. That is not the aim here.

In the aforementioned posts on healing and restoration, it has been explained that when we are wounded (both other and self-inflicted), something is lost, stolen, or given up. Innocence. Joy. Security. Trust. Just to name a few.

Realizing our loss, we often hold the person who wrongfully took what was ours responsible for giving it back. The problem is they cannot. The reason is we are not talking about material possessions, but rather, the sacred. These are things only Jesus can give back to us.

“I [the Lord] will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten…” Joel 2:25

How many years have we spent demanding the “locusts” in our lives give back what they’ve eaten?

A person’s sin against us is the taking of something that cannot be returned by the offender. Lord knows I’ve wanted to grab hold of some of my offenders and shake the living hound out of them, demanding they give back what they’ve taken! But forgiving is to release them—and to no longer demand from them the debt they owe. It is recognizing they cannot return what has been stolen, and turning to the only One who can.

Understanding this makes forgiving easier for me.

Over the next few posts, I will share openly from some of my personal journals as we explore the ins and outs of forgiveness—the next vital step of healing.

From Slavery to Freedom (this has been reworked and rewritten!)

What Band-Aids Won't Heal

The Proven Offer

When "Partial" Isn't Good Enough

One Size Does Not Fit All

The One Who Knows the Steps Holds the Key to our Heart

The Truth Will Set You Free

To Experience

When my three girls were younger, they had a large assortment of small dolls and more accessories than you could imagine. Several large tubs full. In the world of pretending, they were inevitably drawn to create the perfect wedding, complete with the perfect bride and groom. Today, the older two love reading books with great adventure and purpose, and, more importantly to them, two characters destined to fall in love.

As a child, I was more apt to be riding bikes, climbing trees, and racing the guys in the neighborhood on my 4-wheeler! But I had a strong affinity for horses. I was drawn to their strength, and daydreamed often about the intense love a girl and her horse seem to share. I longed for that experience. I ached for it.

Whether we were a girly-girl or a tomboy, our desire for romance found a way to express itself when we were young. Now that we are women, it finds its way into the movies we love and the stories we enjoy. It’s the sigh of our hearts in The Proposal when Andrew realizes his love for Margaret, and returns for her after she runs away, and when Edward returns for Elinor in Sense and Sensibility. It is Jack and Rose in Titanic out on the bow of the ship.

I’m well aware that for most of us, our hearts have been mishandled, maybe even abused and misused. We may have buried this longing, or even abandoned it altogether. But it cannot be fully silenced. Can you at least see that you long for this?

We want to know that we are the center of someone’s attention. Do you see me? Do you delight in me? We want to know fully, and to be fully known. To know beyond any shadow of doubt that we are, indeed, loved. This is written on our hearts by the One who created us in His image! 

While man was intended to love a woman in this way, the fulfillment of our longings for romance doesn’t have to wait for a man. God wants us to know that HE loves us this way! He wants you to know that you are the apple of His eye. (Psalm 17:8, Zechariah 2:8) Yes, He will sometimes love us, romance us through a man, but He also longs to bring this to you Himself.

Now, in order to understand this and embrace it, we must remove the religious veil and see the heart of God as Lover. The Lover of our Souls. Jesus refers to himself as the Bridegroom (Matt. 9:15; Matt. 25:1-10; John 3:29), which simply means fiancé. “Lover.” This metaphor is an invitation to the kind of relationship and intimacy Jesus longs for with us. (Stasi Eldredge, Captivating) If your heart fills with question and hesitancy in this, as mine once did (given my wounded heart), it just means there is healing for your heart here.

For most of my life, I felt like I had to be doing everything “right” in order for God to love me. Consequently, I lived in a hopeless state of believing I was a constant disappointment! Sometimes we feel He loves us because He “has to.”

A few years ago, during a time I struggled to understand how God loves me, I brought my anguish before the Lord. In the quiet with my eyes closed, He gave me a vision of myself as a newborn baby. Having felt the intense, almost inexplicable love for my own children as newborns, I could sense Him smiling in deep delight over me then. Pictures of my childhood flashed, and once again I could feel the love of God smiling over me.

Then He brought to mind a picture of myself in the present, as a woman. It felt as though the lights had gone out. I had no problem believing He loved me when I was a baby and even as a young child…but as a woman? How could He love me the same now? With all my failures and weaknesses?

Paul prays for us in Ephesians 3:18 that we would be able to understand the love of God. How high and deep, how wide and long it is for us! God wants us to believe His love endures all things, even our failures and weaknesses, and that it will never fail us even then. (1 Corinthians 13:7, 8)

But how will we know?

To understand God’s love is to experience His love. All day long my husband can tell me that he loves me; but if he never puts actions to his words that show his love for me, if there is never any experience of his love, then I cannot possibly believe or understand it.

Our God longs to heal us and mature us through His love into mature women (and men) who actually know Him. He wants us to experience verses like I mentioned in my personal testimony (click here to read): “Therefore I am going to allure her; I will lead her into the desert and speak tenderly to her” (Hos. 2:14). To experience what it means to be quieted by His love, as I did through a time of restless questioning (click here for more). And, “you have stolen my heart, my sister, my bride.” (Song of Solomon 4:9)

Oh how we long for this!

Our Enemy does not want us to experience God’s love in new and fresh, tangible ways. He tells us that we must be productive and useful to be loved by God (and sadly, even by others, especially in the church). Shame exaggerates our hearts, and we are pressed to believe that we are not enough, or even that we are too much to be loved. So we settle for less through duty and productivity, believing obedience is all we have left. We are convinced that understanding God’s love is simply an acquired knowledge of the mind, and we shut down our hearts.

“Faithful obedience to God is vital, but it is not all God draws us to. It is not sufficient for our healing, no more than doing the laundry is sufficient for a marriage. And it will not be enough in the long run to carry us through. The persecuted Church is vast today. More Christians are being martyred in our lifetime than in any other time in church history. It is not obedience that is carrying our brothers and sisters—unwavering, steadfast, eyes ablaze—to their deaths. It is holy, fierce passion. Hearts afire.”

“What would it be like to experience for yourself that the truest thing about His heart toward yours is not disappointment or disapproval but deep, fiery, passionate love? This is, after all, what a woman was made for.”

(Stasi Eldredge in Captivating)

We are no longer children, and we’ve put away childish things such as our dolls and toys. But we are called to be childlike—there’s a difference. Our longings as a little girl are not far off base. They are not so foolish after all. In fact, they are telling us the key to experiencing God.

These longings cause us to ache; to ache for the love we were made for. And to ache is to be alive; it is a good thing. We must ask Jesus to come for us here in these longings. To rescue us, to romance our hearts. Keep pressing, keep asking. Love is His specialty—and He wants to experience it with you. New. Fresh. Everyday.

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The She Speaks Conference is about women connecting the hearts of women to the heart of our Father God. My heart is to serve Him and His daughters, as He leads. If you'd like information on how you may apply for a scholarship to SheSpeaks (as I just did through this post), click here. To find out more about this conference, click the button below.

I can Barely Reach the Keyboard from the Floor

I'm still here! I haven't fallen off the face of the earth...at least, I don't think I have! Still trying to figure out where the bump on my head came from. Just kidding. Life and circumstances have a way of taking us out sometimes. And we find ourselves on the floor looking up, rubbing our head and wondering what hit us!

That would be the case for me over the past several weeks. First, back to back travels in the middle of two different weeks in a row (and following a few weekend trips before that) made it nearly impossible to study and write amidst the remaining responsibilities of a family of six. Afterward, I was simply out of the habit! UGH!

I have been writing in the past week for a couple other responsibilities, and I am also getting back to the blog! Back to our topic of healing. This next trip is going to require us to really buckle our seatbelts as we dig into...well...I won't say it yet. Some things are better NOT known ahead of time. :o) Sorry! It will also require some deep preparation time for me to deliver it in bites we can all swallow easily. So please be patient just a little longer.

In the meantime, remember this of Jesus:
¹ The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me,
   because the LORD has anointed me
   to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted [that's you and me!],
   to proclaim freedom for the captives [us again!]
   and release from darkness for the prisoners [you got it!],
² to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor
   and the day of vengeance of our God,
to comfort all who mourn,
 ³ and provide for those who grieve in Zion—
to bestow on them a crown of beauty
   instead of ashes,
the oil of joy
   instead of mourning,
and a garment of praise
   instead of a spirit of despair.
They will be called oaks of righteousness,
   a planting of the LORD
   for the display of his splendor. 

If you'd like a refresher from where we last walked together in this message of healing and freedom, you can find it here.
If you are new to the blog and want to know more of this heart healing--catch up to speed with the rest of us--(or you're not new and need to revisit and walk deeper still) you can find them in order from first to last here:
From Slavery to Freedom (this has been reworked and rewritten!)
What Band-Aids Won't Heal
The Proven Offer
When "Partial" Isn't Good Enough
One Size Does Not Fit All
The One Who Knows the Steps Holds the Key to our Heart
The Truth Will Set You Free (this is where we left off and is the same link as above in the highlighted "here" link)

Deep Sea Adventure

This week I had the pleasure of accompanying my 6th grader and her honors classmates on an overnight field trip to the Georgia Aquarium. It is the world's largest aquarium primarily because of the Ocean Voyager, where thousands of animals from the deep blue sea peruse around in 6.3 million gallons of water! We were privy to behind the scenes tours of this massive tank, among others, and sleeping overnight in the tropical fish room. It was definitely an experience to remember and my favorite short-term field trip to date!

Because of recent back-to-back travels, I have not been able to write weekly as I enjoy doing! But the 4-D film we watched while at the aquarium triggered some memories of another post that I want to share again this week. In the film, we were taken deep below where the scariest and ugliest of sea creatures exist. No one knows all that lurks there in these deepest, darkest oceans. Thousands of miles down under where there is no light, swim creatures with fangs and gruesome fish that eat their prey from the inside out. It is not a place most of us would want to go, given the opportunity.

Ironically, if we’re honest, almost every woman feels a bit that way about her heart. Deep unchartered waters of our past, insecurities that grip our present, painful things we have been through, and the sin we have clung to—not to mention all the labels we carry from these things. Oh how we fear exploring the depths; and we most certainly wouldn’t take our men there to look around, maybe not even our best friend. Heck, we don’t even want to go there ourselves! 

If they knew the true me, they would surely run! We feel we are just too much for anyone. 

Some of the things we’ve been through, and some of the things we’ve done (or fear we’re capable of doing), feel like hell to us.

But what if…just maybe…God’s love is deeper than the deepest hell? What if these things aren't the truest things about us?

To read the full blog, click here: Experience the Depth

RECAP

This week I feel led to re-post a couple of blogs. The first is actually at the top of the Popular Posts list, having been read by almost 300 viewers the past three months literally around the world. If you've ever closed your eyes and envisioned the person you long to be, all that you dream you could be…no longer at war within yourself, confident, sure, free of all shame and the labels of your past, both other- and self-inflicted, and wondered how or if it could ever be true, click the link below.

Experience the Height

The second re-post takes our topic last week (The Truth Will Set You Free) a step deeper, and details a very personal experience I had with God a few years ago. It exemplifies what walking with God through freedom might look like. Change the scenery and some of the details, and you can have your own story. I share this post again because I understand what it is like to long for personal experience, and need a little help along the way from others. We draw from each other's experiences, learning from them, gaining hope and courage from them, and faith for our own life. Paul says that we "help each other with the faith we have. Your faith will help me, and my faith will help you" (Romans 1:12 NCV). This has played out truthfully in SO many ways and times in various relationships in my life. For this reason I share so openly with you all, that my faith may help you and draw you deeper into Jesus. Click below.

Authentic Experience

The Truth Will Set You Free

Disney’s 2000 movie, “The Kid,” depicts the story of a very successful image consultant, working for the big names in politics, sports, and the media. Ironically, Russ has developed quite an image for himself as an over-driven, selfish, and heartless man. A bachelor, he lives alone in a huge house full of glass with an uncomfortably sterile environment.

Russ’ controlled life is turned upside down when a mysterious kid shows up, bearing the same name (going by Rusty, Russ’ childhood name), the same scars, and the same pudgy body Russ once had. When denial and disregard fail to get rid of the boy, Russ finally acquiesces, and begins asking questions to figure out what truth he must recover from his past to move forward in his future.

The subject of his dad comes up, and Rusty talks about how he gets angry and yells at him when he messes up. In fact, he's carrying a screw in his pocket that he lost a week before and had since found, but was too scared to tell his dad about it. Their conversations take them back to his 8th birthday when the young Rusty ends up in a fight on the playground at school. When his mother comes to retrieve him, we learn from the principal she has been very ill, unbeknown to Rusty. His father unexpectedly meets them in the driveway as they return home.

Watch the clip below of that fateful day.

STOP the video at 2:55. It is important to stop here--you can finish the clip after reading to the end of the blog. Be sure your volume is turned up.

Remember Jesus said, referring to Satan, "The thief comes only to steal, kill, and destroy" (John 10:10). And the primary way he does so is by lying to us about ourselves, others, how we perceive a situation, God, and more. Jesus tells us the devil was a "murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies." (John 8:44b)

What is he after you ask? Our heart. Satan knows who you can be and he fears you. As daughters of Eve, yes, we know now we are bent toward sin, but we were created in the image of a beautiful and glorious, life-giving God. Woman is called ezer kenegdo (Genesis 2:18), better translated as lifesaver. (to understand more see, "God's Love, PartVIII "Experience the Width," October 2010 archive). When we live from our hearts the way we were originally intended, not only are we free, but we are able to offer life to others in their time of desperation.

When we are young we know nothing of Eve's story nor God's plan of redemption, so our enemy seeks to take us out early. While we are freshly wounded and most vulnerable, he pours salt into our wounds with his soul-killing lies. In the scene from "The Kid," we see how Rusty grew up believing his mother's death was his fault. As children, we lack the spiritual, mental, and emotional maturity to process our experiences accurately. Then we are further wounded into believing horrid things about ourselves (Stasi Eldredge, Captivating).

To make matters worse, we end up making all sorts of vows out of self-protection, burying our souls even deeper with every wound, every lie believed, and every new vow. For Russ, he was never going to cry, be weak, or let anyone close to his heart. It seemed too great a risk. Someone might get hurt, and no one was going to find him at fault again. He was in complete control of his life.

The verbal and sexual abuses I endured as a child and teenager left me feeling hopeless, bad, and a constant disappointment (to others and to God); shame had arrested me. Because I believed the crimes against me were solely my fault, I also believed I was a dangerous person. That my desires for love, care, and attention only got me into trouble (God-given desires the enemy had twisted.). I had better stay away from people--don't get too close. Steel walls were erected around my heart, no one was getting in, and this girl wasn't about to get out. As a result, duty, busyness, and control summed up my adult life.

Like Russ in the movie, I had to go back to the places I was wounded to identify the lies and discover the truth. This is not connecting with your "inner child" as some psychologists and new age believers would tell you. This is about your heart. John Eldredge says, "Life is a journey of the heart that requires the mind, not the other way around." Jesus wants to free us from the lies and labels of our past that chain us. We must invite Him in, give Him permission and access to our broken hearts.

Those vows we made as children act as sort of a covenant, a deep seated agreement with the messages (lies) of our wounds. They are dangerous. The key to unlocking them is in renouncing them. We cannot wait until we no longer feel they are true, we must renounce them before we're convinced they aren't true. Renouncing the agreements unlocks the door to Jesus. (Captivating)

Here's an example of how we would pray, taken from Captivating, by John and Stasi Eldredge.

Jesus, forgive me for embracing these lies. This is not what you have said of me. You said I am your daughter, your beloved, your cherished one. I renounce the agreements I made with [name the specific messages you've been living with. "I'm stupid. I'm ugly." You know what they are.] I renounce the agreements I've been making with these messages all these years. Bring the truth here, oh Spirit of Truth. I reject these lies.

And let the tears come. Tears validate our pain. They are, in a sense, like healing balm to our weary souls, tired from holding everything in for so long. Let it all out. Jesus Himself was a "man of sorrows and acquainted with grief" (Isaiah 53:3). Make time for this. I used to get alone in my closet, my car, anywhere private and safe.

You need to give yourself permission to feel again. Many things will erupt. Anger was a first for me. That's okay. Anger is not a sin (Ephesians 4:26). You may also feel remorse, as I did. Deep sorrow over so many years lost. Whatever comes, let it be.

"Grief is a form of validation; it says the wound mattered. It mattered. You mattered. That's not the way life was supposed to go. There are unwept tears down in there--the tears of a little girl who is lost and frightened. The tears of a teenage girl who's been rejected and has no place to turn. The tears of a woman whose life has been hard and lonely and nothing close to her dreams."
(Captivating, p. 103)

Once the lies are broken, "then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free" (John 8:32). Such freedom will reverse the life of control to a life of trust...trust in the One who set you free.

The One Who Knows the Steps Holds the Key to our Heart

One of my favorite movies is Shall We Dance? Partly because I can relate to the main character, John Clark, who seems to have it all, yet secretly longs for more. Life has become stale for him amongst all the routine busyness, and something is missing…that something is his heart.

Likewise, the lead female character, Paulina (and dance instructor), has a story of her own lost passion—once focused and fiery, now buried and locked away. She hides herself in duty and passionless teaching, short of temper and patience. Her distance is kept by her icy ways of communicating with others, especially John…the one person who has the key to unlock her heart again.

Before we get too much farther, let me pose a question:  how would you best describe your life right now? Alive? Free? Passionate? Or dutiful? Busy? Stale?

At one point in the movie we learn what has brought Paulina to this lifeless state. Exposed was the loss of her first love years before through a tragic scene of events on the competition dance floor. It wasn’t a true love to begin with, and her partner’s selfish intentions were revealed when her fall cost them a highly esteemed title in the world of dance.

Now John threatens to open the wounded part of her that she has worked so hard to protect. Despite her best efforts, he eventually breaks through, as his newfound passion in the freedom of dancing awakens hers once again. Though clumsy at first, John becomes quite the dancer, and finds himself signed up for one of Chicago’s finest dance competitions.

The only one who can take him to the level he is capable of is Paulina. She finally agrees to help him, and they meet one night alone at the dance studio. The music is intense, and so is the atmosphere as his strength begins to unlock her tightly sealed vulnerability. Paulina breaks away in fear and frustration a couple of times, but the reminder of what it feels like to be alive again pushes her to get back in the dance. She finally releases herself and leans into the strength holding her, abandoning herself to the music once again.

When the healing of our heart begins, usually something happens, a crisis of sorts, an awakening, etc. Somehow we begin to see that something just isn’t quite right; life is not the way it was meant to be, and far from what we long for it to be. Also, in the beginning of recovering that life, it can feel scary. Intimidating. Confusing. And we are tempted to push away. There is something so unfair about the way the enemy comes and cuts in with fear, tempting us to believe that the life we want is not worth fighting for.

Early in the movie described, we see Paulina looking out a window of the dance studio. She tries to keep her lost stares and her blank expressions hidden from the rest of the world. Yet hopes of surviving through duty and self-protection are challenged when John comes on the scene. Little does she know at first that the keys to true freedom are at hand.

So it is with God in our lives. After running long and hard away from my past, a few great losses too close together stripped me of all the strength I’d carried. Then my tightly built, self-made walls of security came crashing down around me. It was in that desert place God came for me in the most unexpected ways. And He comes for you just the same, Dear Friend.

“But then I will win her back once again. I will lead her into the desert and speak tenderly to her there. I will return her vineyards to her and transform the Valley of Trouble into a gateway of hope. She will give herself to me there, as she did long ago when she was young, when I freed her from her captivity in Egypt.”

(Hosea 2:14-15 NLT)

Jesus knows the key to unlocking our heart is found in facing our past. It first takes stripping us of all our destructive ways of survival and self-protection. Then we must go back to the place where we were once wounded and recover what was lost, stolen, and given up there.

“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I [Jesus] have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”

(John 10:10 NIV)

One of the problems, though, is that we’ve believed a lie that what happened in our past doesn’t matter. We fail to see how our past shaped us and made us who we are now. We try to forget the past, but even if we do attempt facing it, well-meaning people tell us to “just let it go.”

Ever wonder what in the world that means? Listen clearly, Friend, letting go only comes in healing. If it didn’t, then Jesus would not have made a big deal out of being the one who comes to heal the brokenhearted!! (Isaiah 61:1, Luke 4)

Our minds do not have the ability to forget our wounds forever, and our hearts are not able to just pick up and move on as if nothing ever happened. If we try, we’ll carry the bloody footprints of our hearts with us every where we go. Just look at the desolate woman next door, or the one who fights to be the center of attention at work. Yes, even the one exhausted by controlling her world and almost every person in it. (the latter was me)

As we begin to dig into the recesses of our pasts, I realize how painful some reminders will be. No one wants to go there, but take heart…we are not going alone. Jesus is going with us…He wants to heal us, set the record straight, and restore what has been lost and stolen. Remember, He wants to fix it. (“When Partial Isn’t Good Enough” January archive)

“The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me, because the LORD has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who grieve in Zion—to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the LORD for the display of his splendor.”

(Isaiah 61:1-3 NIV, prophesying of Jesus)

Only Jesus holds the keys to unlock our heart, and with His healing, bring the liveliness, passion, and freedom we long for. He knows the dance steps, and He leads with a strength we can trust. Take courage. We have nothing to lose, and everything to gain!