Courage and Will

The hard step of forgiveness:

“A real step of courage and will. We must forgive those who hurt us. The reason is simple:  Bitterness and unforgiveness set their hooks deep in our hearts; they are chains that hold us captive to the wounds and the messages of those wounds. Until you forgive, you remain their prisoner. Paul warns us that unforgiveness and bitterness can wreck our lives and the lives of others (Eph. 4:31; Heb. 12:15). We have to let it all go.

’Forgive as the Lord forgave you.’” (Col. 3:13)

(Captivating, pp. 103-104)

I know what some of you are thinking…”There’s just no way I can forgive.” “Easier said than done.” “It’s easy for God to forgive.” “I don’t feel like forgiving yet.”

Some of us are waiting to feel something first, as though forgiveness means we should have some ushy-gushy feeling of releasing the person. That’s how I thought when I faced the decision of forgiving my greatest offender.

Undergoing prayer counseling several years ago, walking through every relationship of my past and dealing with the spiritual issues surrounding each one, we came upon forgiveness. Sharing the thoughts above, among many others, I sat waiting in silence, trying to feel forgiveness and release. That is when the prayer counselor said, “It’s not about a feeling. Forgiving is an act of the will. Feelings come later.”

With her words there was a sense of relief. I had a choice to make, an act of the will. Step one, you could say. If I waited for feelings to come first, they would never come! But if I wanted my heart to follow, I had to choose to forgive.

Forgiving is not saying the wound didn’t matter, rather, the opposite. It is saying it did matter, and it hurt me deeply. What you did was wrong, and I release you to God. I will not be your captive any more. (Captivating)

It took a while for my heart to catch up, but I found it to be true that as long as I was unforgiving, I was bound to my offenders and to the messages of their wounds. Not only does the act of forgiving release the person to God, but it also releases our own heart!

Bitterness and anger no longer controlled me. It stopped spewing itself upon my family. Greater depths of healing were freeing my heart daily through the courageous act of forgiving. And I was no longer a prisoner to my offenders.

Who are you struggling to forgive? Will you take the first step today? Ask Jesus to give you the courage.

There is much more to explore and sift through here, and we will. But today, choose to trust God with all your fears and questions as you take step one:  choose to forgive. (It's not what you may think...)

Dear Sisters (and Brothers)

We had a massive interruption to life this week--death is like that. It doesn't ask your permission, or wait for a "convenient" time. It sneaks up on you like a thief. With no warning. That's what we experienced this week when my sister lost her husband suddenly and unexpectedly.

We are no stranger to such tragic losses. Yet, because we've seen and felt the mighty hand of God hold us up, heal us, and restore us, walk with us and talk with us in past tragedies...we again hope against all hope, as we are told in Romans 4:18.

The passage here is speaking of Abraham, when his and Sarah's bodies were as good as dead. Yet, God had promised them a baby! In their old age! It was ludicrous. It was crazy. It required a hope against all hope, a belief that did not waiver (v. 20). It was an "impossible" time.

Those things which shake us up in life, those things which leave us wondering what in the world we will do and what in the world/how in the world will even God accomplish anything here--those impossible places call upon us to hope against all hope, believing God like never before. We become desperate.

Desperate for Him to speak.
Desperate for Him to move.
Desperate for Him to act.

What has interrupted your life? What is your impossible? For what are you desperate right now?

In hope against all hope believe that God will do for you as He has promised. Get in His Word, the timeless words of God in the Bible, and learn what His promises are. Hope, pray, and believe they will be true for you.

****

I will return to our topic of forgiveness very soon, as I am still staying close by my sister's side right now. You can read the first part of this topic here. It is a continuation of the heart-healing series which began in the December archive.

Melissa Pickens' Thin Place: Slave No More ~ Mary DeMuth

Today my story appears on author Mary DeMuth's website as I share details of my rescue from "slavery." Come meet the Hero of my story and find Him the Hero of your own! (click on the title above to view)

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