You can change your life...
Why do so many people choose not to take the first step out of that learned pity/defenselessness? I suppose it comes from trying so hard and seeing all your efforts come to naught...not wanting to fight anymore becasue the pain is overwhelming and there really is no end in sight. Sure, your castle and all the beauty of being finally (AT LAST!) in the moment you always dreamed of might be just around the corner, but you don't know that...and its just easier not to hope.
It's easier to never call that dad, because he never calls you...
It's easier to let pity take hold, at least its familiar...
It's easier to never talk to that cute guy, to stay hidden away...
It's easier to stay where we are but oohhh...God has so much more for us.
You can change your life...but only with Jesus walking beside you, directing your path, healing and speaking into your wounds...
We have been made ugly, filthy, unclean by our contact with the world and from the things that dwell within our own minds and come to us from others...No one is clean, righteous, pure...we all deserve the gutter we came from (I'm reading "The Gutter" by Craig Gross, a man who started a ministry to porn addicts, thus the gutter reference)...but a God came who wasn't content to leave us there. He came to our gutter, our pain and poured His love over us, gave us hope...
So even when life throws all the shit it has at us, we still have His arms to fall into. We can look into the eyes of a father who deserted us and see pain and be filled with His love. Not because of anything we have recieved from that earthly father, but because of all that we know of our heavenly Father.
But sometimes its so hard...how do you change years of longing? How do you let go of so many crushed dreams? How do you let go of bitterness? It seems impossible...but my Jesus said (more than once) that we would do the impossible. Because of faith. Trusting in Him. Using His strength.
This is easier said than done, I know. My father stayed near and adored me as much as he was able. And where he failed, I learned to flee and fall into my heavenly Father's arms. But if you haven't learned that, a new pattern is hard to create. But just call...just call.
I had to learn a new pattern this year...one that hurt me so hard. I had dreams...dashed. Something had happened which opened up a part of me that I never believed would come alive--and then that door and that hope were silently and definitely closed and I was crushed. It was some of the worst emotional pain I have ever been in. I have yet to look at that man who I so loved without feeling a wrenching in my heart.
For a while I was just making it. I was learning to let go of him, with all my heart. It took many lonely, long months of me trying to run from all the feelings and turmoil. Then one night I was at my lowest, so lonely, crying in the dark. The thought occurred to me: "What if in five years I am even more alone than I am right now?" I couldn't bear it, it was too overwhelming/crushing.
But Jesus was there, Jesus is always there. He spoke: "I will be with you. Even if your worst fears are realized, I will still be there, I will be enough." That was a turning point, that was my change. I suddenly knew that no matter what I faced, even my worst nightmares of ending up alone, I would be fine, even joyful; because He was truly everything I needed and He would never leave.
Even now, in this season of such uncertainty, He has been teaching me (through a rough season) to have my hope in Him alone. I cannot look to money as my hope, nor to people or even dreams He has placed in me. He is, and always will be, my only sure thing. If I can learn that--not just say it, but live it--then all my life He will be able to use and move me as I never dreamed. But I must hold it all so loosely...all my life completely in His hands, allowing for Him to be the ebb and flow and I just bending to His pleasure...and why would I want to be anywhere else?
The One who loves me is calling me back into His arms again--and that is such a place of strength, though I forget and pull away so often. But I will dance with Him again, I will dream with Him again, I will be His and His alone again! I so long for this new season!!! I was scared of it before, but now it is just unfolding into Beauty...
I am my Beloved's and my Beloved is mine...
