Breaking out of empty and hollow feelings – design your life!

I have been learning and realizing some things over the last few months.

After the initial excitement of being back in South Africa and sharing with family again, I have found a dramatic drop in my levels of feeling energetic. I had to pause and think again and again at what was missing. Was it hope? Why was my energy lower? I seemed lack-luster, sapped. My addictive behavior had spiked upwards quite dramatically.

I checked my food and drinking habits… I don’t drink, don’t smoke, don’t do drugs. What was going on? Why was I reacting like this? Good things also happened.

After years of being poorly treated in Australia, I was now master of my own ship and enjoying the freedom that usually comes with democracy. I’m able to speak without people telling me I can’t, I can make friends with whoever and wherever and whenever I want.

Breakthrough to emotions… getting the juices flowing

I finally came to a moment when I finally cried deeply and vented my sadness at what I had experienced, the people I had lost and especially at the relationship I wanted to have with one particular person which was never allowed/permitted to happen. I cried. I wept. Then a few days later I felt deep hatred and wanted vengeance for what I had been put through.

Denial-anger-grief-acceptance (a more limited version of the full Kübler-Ross grief model) is the normal cycle to go through when adjusting to trauma and loss…

1. Denial — “I feel fine.”; “This can’t be happening, not to me.”
   
2. Anger — “Why me? It’s not fair!”; “How can this happen to me?”; “Who is to blame?”
   
3. Bargaining — “Just let me live to see my children graduate.”; “I’ll do anything for a few more years.”; “I will give my life savings if…”
4. Depression — “I’m so sad, why bother with anything?”; “I’m going to die . . . What’s the point?”; “I miss my loved one, why go on?”
   
5. Acceptance — “It’s going to be okay.”; “I can’t fight it, I may as well prepare for it.”
   

I felt led to read the psalms and saw so much of David’s own anger and desire for vengeance in his writings. So many psalms spoke to me, the one that He spoke directly to me Psalm 35 had the identical feelings in it as I had.

¹ Contend, O LORD, with those who contend with me;
fight against those who fight against me.

² Take up shield and buckler;
arise and come to my aid.

⁴ May those who seek my life
be disgraced and put to shame;
may those who plot my ruin
be turned back in dismay.

⁵ May they be like chaff before the wind,
with the angel of the LORD driving them away;

⁶ may their path be dark and slippery,
with the angel of the LORD pursuing them.

⁷ Since they hid their net for me without cause
and without cause dug a pit for me,

⁸ may ruin overtake them by surprise—
may the net they hid entangle them,
may they fall into the pit, to their ruin.

⁹ Then my soul will rejoice in the LORD
and delight in his salvation. – Psalm 35

Before reading this, I had not realized how much anger (and even perhaps hatred) that King David had felt.

And as you would expect there were some psalms were from the Lord telling David to forgive. Sigh. Always with the forgiving. For the first time I really saw the humanity of David, and of course the compassion of God for human beings.

Anger. Hatred. These are all normal human emotions and this time was a sign of me healing. Sadness and loss… to have these feelings is better than to NOT have them. To not have them is to not be human. To have them is to function as a real live person who has working emotions.

Embrace your emotions about what happened in your past. It’s ok. When these feelings are felt and they pass you will experience new thoughts, new dreams, new hopes.

Going back to old patterns

I think that facing my suppressed emotions created an openness, an opportunity to connect with other aspects of my thinking and feelings. I really wanted to deal with the addictive behavior and the emptiness… I needed to understand them and to learn how to stop them. I did another inventory… I checked my faith, my prayer life, my thought life… all seemed ok. And yet I felt an intertia. Why?

And then it came to me. Being around my family had reminded me of the patterns of my youth. I looked at them more closely. Do these people live? Really live? I don’t mean party, I mean do they connect with people? Do they know about community? How much warmth is there in their lives? Do they have a sense of self… a self that needs to be protected? I noticed a strong and unhealthy fear of authorities, an unhealthy desire to avoid conflict, a desire to have peace at all costs, seeing isolation as a solution to many problems.

Everything you know, you learned from someone

Just think about it… babies start like this… with nothing and no concept of anything. They are empty. Emptiness is a very common feeling in modern society…

And everything they learn about themselves, someone told them. If they got told the wrong thing, then that is what they learned and now they think it. Child soldiers in war simply do what they are told.

They get abducted from their families and they get retrained and told new “truths” and they become warriors. The movie Blood Diamond showed some of that retraining taking place. In the picture to the left, the father has found his son and rescued him from the guerrillas who had retrained him into being a child warrior.

The fact is that until we take charge of our lives, until then we are the product of what was put into us as children and young adults. Taking charge means assessing who you are, what you are good at, what you want to do.

Everything you think you know, you learned from someone. You learned it from wonderful people, from abusive people, from the bible, from fire-and-brimstone preachers, from religious teachers, from warm kind caring pastors.

Children have to be taught how to live. Food, identity, warm clothes, emotional warmth, feelings of safety – it all has to be PUT into them. They can’t do anything for themselves.

In that same way, they have to be prepared for life. They can only learn and be ready for adulthood, if their parents consciously chose to prepare them. A baby is born with absolutely no knowledge and no skills. They can’t find the kitchen, can’t make food, can’t speak english and ask for what they need. Nothing! Everything that baby gets – food, warmth, skills – comes from the people around that baby and especially from the parents.

I’m thinking about how much my friend Caryn planned her preparation of her son for his entry into the public domain. She literally made a list of skills that he needed to have in place for him to be able to make it work. She made a list and she worked with him on it and ticked them off as he learned them. There are certain skills a person needs to make life work ad someone needs to teach them to us… or we have to go and learn them for ourselves.

Playing games like “The Sims” can teach some of these skills, like looking in a newspaper for a job and then applying for the job… because if you don’t, then you don’t have income… and if you don’t have income, then you will not have lots and lots of things needed for living.

But “The Sims” cannot teach hundreds and thousands of life lessons that people need to learn in order to live socially. That only comes by practise and experience.

Desensitised to life

And this was what I figured out. My family was not social. My father is not attached. My mother is not attached. Being conveniently near a person often enough to talk to them doesn’t mean you are emotionally attached to that person.

I also saw that I had not been prepared for life. Life lessons were not passed on. Things other people learn were not taught to me. It’s not just that I was emotionally and physically unsafe as a youngster, but I was uncared for. I know this because even now as an adult when I talk about the ghastly experiences I went through, few people react with horror… they simply don’t have that kind of emotional attachment. As a friend said to me about his lack of interest towards other people “I just don’t give a shit”.

One of the things I noticed in Australia was the level of care and concern people had for one another. Simple stories that get no reaction here – which is what I thought was normal – would get visible reactions of shock there. I was literally astounded as I realized that my stories were deeply upsetting to people. I didn’t know that before seeing their reaction, because I grew up in a family where you could tell the closest person to you that you have been abused and their will react with a one-line statement and never comment on the issue again.

So what had been happening to me after I returned? I was slowly adjusting back to how it was before. Less care for people. Less shock-and-horror reactions to things.

Yes there are real reasons for why South Arican society is so desensitized to what should shock us. In our society extreme trauma is normal to see. I grew up hearing bomb explosions in my suburb. I thought nothing of it. What is normal for us, is extra-ordinary for safe societies like Australia. So in Australia my personal stories seemed utterly shocking to my best friend Michael. I was fortunate that I could learn from his reaction, I had no idea what normal was.

I have returned to South Africa more sensitized to what is normal and ok in a healthy society.

But now being in close proximity to family members trapped in old behaviour patterns, I was being reminded of my former “it doesn’t matter” and “I don’t matter” – style of thinking. But it was more than that. Living with family was reminding me of the inertia that I grew up in. Our family didn’t have strong ties amongst ourselves, nor with the extended family around us. The warmth that I learned to experience with friends in Australia was absent in our family. I truly didn’t know about inner warmth until God healed me – and I’ve written about that on this blog site.

From OUTside to inside

Think again about that baby. All the arrows point inwards. As it lies there newly born, naked, it’s inner temperature is dropping… that has never happened before! It had come from a world in which the temperature was provided by the womb, but now it is outside the womb… the temperature is not guaranteed.

Now it has to be maintained by a willing care giver. And the baby has no concept of it’s own needs, it cannot figure out what cold is and pull the blanket over. That will take YEARS to learn. In the womb the baby’s emotions would have synched to the mother, but now outside, it synchs to her through cuddling and comforting. If there is no comfort, then the baby cannot moderate it’s own emotions.

Everything was automatically provided in the womb, but then it becomes available only when someone takes time to care for the baby. If the care giver is drunk or stoned or emotionally absent, then the baby has no capacity to care for itself. And as the years go by, the ability of a baby to care for itself will make all the difference. As a young boy and then a teen, the desire is usually there to do it for yourself. Abuse and lack of care in the home can upset this normal situation, and the inner drive for independence may not develop.

In a healthy family the normal and valid emotions of family members are accepted and acknowledged. Independance is encouraged as well as monitored to ensure it doesn’t go too far ahead of the emotional abilities of the young person. In a co-dependant family, emotions are not permitted. Self defense – a very useful life skill – may also be supressed and not learned. Many skills needed for life may not be learned in such a family.

If this happens, then a young person may hit adulthood without having learned the skills he or she needs to have in order to live a productive life, so they might be stuck in old patterns. If they learned passivity as a young person, they may remain passive as an adult – never really living a full life.

Basic life skills

The basic skills that an adult needs to live a healthy life may include some of these things.

Be able to…

• connect with other people in supportive communities (sharing food, communication, support, protection)
• identify what you need and find a resource somewhere to meet that need (find money, physical or emotional)
• know your strengths and weaknesses enough to be able to identify opportunities you can achieve at and avoid situations you repeatedly fail at
• have a sense of hope and optimism that you can learn new tricks and new skills – and put this into action in daily life to develop new opportunities
• identify all the basic ingredients needed to maintain a normal life, and the discipline to keep doing those things
• learn enough about yourself to know your needs and wants, and to know what your own boundaries are, know how many people you want around yourself, how close, how intimate etc.
• learn enough about other people to understand their needs and wants and their boundaries, and how to connect and communicate with them etc.
• listening to your inner sense or intuition for signs of nearby danger or situations to avoid

In all of these things, these lessons are learned by LIVING life. We walk, we fall down, we learn, we walk a bit more, falling less because we learned.

When we are a baby, all these lessons are GIVEN to us as advice from adults around us. As we grow up we are encouraged to figure them out for ourselves, caring people ask us “what do YOU think” and encourage us “give it a try”. We are able to learn in safety. Like with training wheels on a bike, adults watch us and remove the wheels when we can handle it.

To be a successful adult we need to do these things for ourselves without adult direction. Ideally we have already been doing them for ourselves for a while. Through repeatedly trying, failing, trying, succeeding – practise makes perfect – we come to a place of mastering the basic ingredients for life.

From INside to outside – outwards

But in adulthood we leave our parents and cleave to that special someone. Cleaving-and-leaving can be almost impossible if some of those basic lessons – boundaries, knowing yourself, reading other people, having intuition about impending trouble – without these we can’t find a suitable mate, we can’t communicate successfully with the person, we can’t find a balance between their needs and ours.

And because the demands of adulthood include caring for a family, paying a morgage, debts, growth, stress… we really need those skills to be in place. In adulthood the arrows don’t point inwards any more, they point OUTwards FROM you towards society. Unless you have the skills to find and connect into a caring community, you are not likely to be surrounded by positive INput.

But you are an adult now… you have to find the answers yourself and act on them.

They key is to understand that what used to come TO you from outside, now needs to come from INside you. So for example

• Where you used to get good advice, you now need to give yourself good advice
• Where other people calmed you and listened to you, you need to do this for yourself
• Where other people told you what you are good at and encouraged you, you now need to do this for yourself

How many people aren’t learning life skills?

It’s more common than you think… take these 2005 statistics for South Africa…

• In South Africa 41%, or 7.3 million children from birth to 17 years, do not live with an employed person in the same household – and therefore are not able to learn about job hunting and maintaining a CV and upgrading work skills
• In the Limpopo province, for example, has a poverty rate of 83% – and this might mean that children and growing up without the ability to care for themselves. Yougn girls may not be able to afford to pay for tampons and other personal needs. Basic skills can’t be learned in poverty.
• 22% of children were resident with neither biological parent – in this situation skills aren’t transferred from a caring parent. Identity and self image cannot be nurtured and developed.
• Half of households reported having insufficient food at times – this is another time during which a young person learns negative lessons about life, safety and self care.

Sources:

• Children in households with an employed adult
• Children residing with biological parents
• The impact of HIV and AIDS on Africa

Is it any wonder that I pray so hard and so much for revival and a complete change to society through the outpouring of His Spirit? Nothing else promises to help us all as much as He is promising to. You can read more about this prayer here: Until the Spirit is poured upon us from on high

What’s the problem?

The problem is that if people don’t learn these skills, then they simply keep living as they did as children or young adults. Their hands remain open to receiving, their hearts always looking for people to speak INTO them.

But time has marched on, and they are at an age where they ARE able to make their own way in the world… if they can just develop the skills to do so.

For example, one successful strategy to survive an abusive household is to remain passive and hidden. Not many life skills will be learned while the person remains in this strategy. But as an adult, that strategy is no longer needed. The person can take charge and live a completely different and more assertive life. What is needed is for the person to abandon survival skills learned in childhood, and to adopt completely new and different ways of living.

And that can be very tough to make that change from a strategy that you used for 10 years, over to an unknown new behavior. The saying goes, a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. I’m saying to you, give up the strategy that you have in your hand – passivity, isolation, violence – and take the chance that you can learn to walk a completely new life and learn completely new things.

For sure you want to know about the birds in the bush… before you put down the bird in your hand. But the problem is, these new skills have to be learned, and they are learned by walking and falling and learning and then walking a bit better because we learned.

Going forward from here – consciously

Remain as you are OR change. Change means making a life that you want and like. getting to know what you want can be difficult. The exact phrase “I want” is biblical… it occurs 31 times in the New Testamant in the NIV and 63 times in The Message. Clearly people wanted things in the New Testament, so I’m sure it’s fine for you to want things too.

When you get in touch with what you want, then work on getting to know yourself and your inner world… in this way you will make new dreams, new friends who have the same energy levels as you, new hopes and new plans. And then go ahead and actually DO those things.

And let me leave you with this final and encouraging truth…

The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity and an understanding of life that fills them with compassions, gentleness and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen.” — by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

That is the same lady who made the Kübler-Ross grief model, also known as the 5 stages of grief.

Keep reading… more posts you may enjoy

• Your personal bill of rights **
• Why does the bible say to love yourself? **
• Getting out of depression (learned helplessness) by learning to be optimistic **
• Heal your identity – it will help to fill the emptiness inside
• Christian burn out cycle
• How to make decisions
• God has a plan to prosper you… what to do while you wait
• How to fill up the lonely hurt inside
• What to do when you’re feeling empty inside

Filed under: Healing, Me, myself, I

Your personal bill of rights

So this is my final post for a while. In the next few days I am moving country. I have tremendous hope and a wonderful vision for my near future and I’m trusting that He will complete the good work He has begun in me.

being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. – Phil 1:6

I have wondered what would be the most useful post (for you the reader) and to make that my final post. I honestly think that the biggest problem in the church is low self esteem and passivity. That is a mental issue, it’s not about faith as much as it’s about how you think – it’s about the lack of hope. Remember this verse?

For as he thinks in his heart, so is he – Prov 23:7

You see, faith hope and love are all very important.

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

Faith, hope, love are interconnected

Faith is vital and is frequently taught in the church. We know that Paul taught that love is the most important – but it’s not frequently taught. But also hope is important and that verse from Proverbs explains why.

“Stinking thinking” about yourself, having low self esteem about yourself – this negates the many opportunities in your life.

As you can imagine, if you have no love for yourself, how can you love others? The bible says you won’t be able to. Take a look!

For the whole Law [concerning human relationships] is complied with in the one precept, You shall love your neighbor as [you do] yourself. – Gal 5:14

Yes you shall love others with the same love you have for yourself. You cannot pour out for others if you have nothing within yourself to give. So that is why my last post is this one: your personal bill of rights.

1. I have the right to ask for what I want.
2. I have the right to say no to requests or demands I can’t meet.
3. I have the right to express all of my feelings, positive or negative.
4. I have the right to change my mind.
5. I have the right to make mistakes and not have to be perfect.
6. I have the right to follow my own standards and standards.
7. I have the right to say no to anything when I feel I am not ready, it is unsafe, or it violates my values.
8. I have the right to determine my own priorities.
9. I have the right not to be responsible for others’ behavior, actions, feelings, or problems.
10. I have the right to expect honesty from others.
11. I have the right to be angry at someone I love.
12. I have the right to be uniquely myself.
13. I have the right to feel scared and say “I’m scared.”
14. I have the right to say “I don’t know.”
15. I have the right not to give excuses or reasons for my behavior.
16. I have the right to make decisions based on my feelings.
17. I have the right to my own needs for personal space and time.
18. I have the right to be playful and frivolous.
19. I have the right to be healthier than those around me.
20. I have the right to be in a non abusive environment.
21. I have the right to make friends and be comfortable around people.
22. I have the right to change and grow.
23. I have the right to have my needs and wants respected by others.
24. I have the right to be treated with dignity and respect.
25. I have the right to be happy.

If you can get these rights down deep within yourself, you will stop being walked over, you will feel free to change things so they suit you, you will do what you want instead of only what others around you want. You will develop care for yourself, you will stand up for yourself, you will say yes when you mean yes, and no when you mean no. You will also find yourself prospering and excelling in the gifts He has given you.

Pouring love out from within you

And what’s more, you will fill up on the inside as you begin to stand up straighter, saying yes and no and caring for yourself. As you fill up on the inside, you will have more to share with others. You will be loving yourself more, and in turn you will be able to love others more too. You cup will overflow with self esteem and your family will benefit, your friends will benefit, your church will benefit, society will benefit.

Don’t expect everyone else to simply adjust to the new you. Other people may have been overriding your will and proclaiming their things to you for a while now, so re-educating them into what is fair and what is actually healthy… that may take a while. In my experience people who have power may have gotten it in the wrong way and now have no difficultly in maintaining that power in even more wrong ways.

So your choices to stand up for good behaviour may in fact cause some disturbance as you publicly point out the wrongful behaviours you are no longer going to tolerate. God has made you in His image. He loves you. You matter to Him. You matter to me. No matter who you are, or what has happened, you matter to Him and to me. So you must stand up for yourself and put into action the personal bill of rights.

And remember that everyone else also has the same bill of rights. And if the people in the church matured individually, then imagine what will happen to the church body. In fact the bible makes it clear…

And His gifts were [varied; He Himself appointed and gave men to us] some to be apostles (special messengers), some prophets (inspired preachers and expounders), some evangelists (preachers of the Gospel, traveling missionaries), some pastors (shepherds of His flock) and teachers.

His intention was the perfecting and the full equipping of the saints (His consecrated people), [that they should do] the work of ministering toward building up Christ’s body (the church), [That it might develop] until we all attain oneness in the faith and in the comprehension of the [full and accurate] knowledge of the Son of God, that [we might arrive] at really mature manhood (the completeness of personality which is nothing less than the standard height of Christ’s own perfection), the measure of the stature of the fullness of the Christ and the completeness found in Him. – Eph 4:11-14

So then, we may no longer be children, tossed [like ships] to and fro between chance gusts of teaching and wavering with every changing wind of doctrine, [the prey of] the cunning and cleverness of unscrupulous men, [gamblers engaged] in every shifting form of trickery in inventing errors to mislead. – Eph 4:11-14

Those verses talk about fullness and maturity and stature – powerful and strong words. It is His intention that YOU come to fullness and maturity, SO THAT the greater church comes to fullness and maturity. The church is the sum of it’s members plus the Holy Spirit. That is why I say that the greatest danger is the crippling of the members – either through low self esteem, or through the passing of laws which cripple our right to express our faith. Both are very great dangers.

We must matures and achieve wholeness, in order for the church to grow… because as we grow, the darkness of the world moves back and people, countries, economies, jobs, marriages – all are released from darkness. It’s a group effort. Each generation stands on the shoulders of those that went before them, just as David stood on the work of Samuel and Saul, who stood on the work of Abraham, who… you get the idea.

So go and grow and mature as an individual. Take your place. Be a good steward of what He has given you. Let your yes be yes and your no be no.

Let your Yes be simply Yes, and your No be simply No – Matt 5:37

but let your yes be [a simple] yes, and your no be [a simple] no – Jam 5:12

And – one more time – WHY should you grow as an individual? Because in, as Eph 4:11-14 says, the church grows when it’s individual parts grow in maturity. If you want the church to grow, if you want society to heal… then get on with reading and living your personal bill of rights, get on with fixing how you think in your heart

For AS he thinks in his heart, so IS he – Prov 23:7

God bless. I doubt I will be posting for a while. I hope to be busy busy busy loving people. My strategy is pretty simple: “Preach the gospel at all times, and if necessary use words” – St. Francis of Assisi. If it’s good enough for him, then it’s good enough for me.

Filed under: Church, Healing , Bible, christian, Christianity, Church, Jesus, Jesus Christ, Revival, Scripture

For as he thinks IN HIS HEART, so is he.

I have written quite a few blog posts about faith, some about love and several about hope.

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

One of the posts I wrote was this one: A biblical strategy for balanced healing: faith, hope and love and I wrote: “In one sentence, this is what I have learned: Faith brings healing and freedom. Hope changes the way you think. And love is what you DO with all this new potential.”

When I wrote about hope, I (of course) quoted this verse…

For as he thinks in his heart, so is he.   – Prov 23:7

Well. Praise God! He clarified something for me yesterday (sunday) through Pastor Brian, something that I didn’t see at all. Checkit!

The words flashed up on the screen: “For as he thinks, so is he.” No. Wait. Ummm… is that really what it says? Ummm… as I sat there… I saw that I had misread the words. Is it indeed “For as he thinks, so is he.” ?? Is it?

No! In fact there are some words missing: “in his heart“, and although I was listening intently before, I suddenly was listening even more.

For as he thinks in his heart, so is he.   – Prov 23:7

Woooah. Thoughts… heart… two things, but connected. Thinks in his heart. My heart is determining my thoughts. Uh-oh! I saw it so clearly.

It became instantly clear to me that how I think in my heart is determining my life. It’s not how I think in my mind. Oh dear, this is deep, muuuuch deeper, this is going where I don’t really want to go!

And then Pastor Brian really hit the exhillarator, he challenged us to live what God says about us, instead of what our heart says about us.

Kerpow! Right between the eyes. But wait… what He says is not how I FEEL!! Now what do I do?

So – for example – what has God spoken about me?

Time and time again people and leaders prophesy about me being a worship leader. So many times Christians stand in front of me, look quizzically at me, and then ask if I play the guitar. I answer no. They say they can see me holding a guitar, worship leading, big things happening.

So many many times. And to be honest, I love love love worshipping. I do it for hours a day just by myself!

Ok… so what’s the problem? The problem is this… that is what God says this about me, but in my heart I don’t believe it. I’d rather sit quietly in a corner and pray for everyone! And that’s largely what I do – because that’s what’s in my (broken) heart.

For as he thinks in his heart, so is he. Sux!! So because my self esteem doesn’t think I can do it, I don’t do it. Well actually that makes a lot of sense of why my head decides I’m going to do this and that and something else, and then often nothing happens!?

So Pastor Brian challenged us to live according to God’s words for our lives. Gulp. What? You mean go do what God says about me? But. But. I don’t FEEL it, I don’t SEE myself doing it, it’s not how I see myself?! Gulp!!

Busted! Exposed!

The problem that has undermined me for ages is within me and it was clearly exposed. As I think in my heart, I am living. And the challenge was there… live according to what God says of me, and not what I think of me. Oooeeerrr!! This is scary.

So I decided to do it. Make decisions based on His words, rather than based on my heart or my own thoughts of myself.

Last year in my facebook (and on this blog) I wrote as one of the things I wanted to do was worship with the guitar – because I love worshiping! I actually own two guitars and at one stage I owned a guitar hero 3! So what happened? You guessed it, I never learned to play the guitar. Why? Because within my heart I desperately desire to avoid the limelight at all costs.

My (broken) heart is the problem, it defines my thoughts and that defines how I live my life!

For as he thinks in his heart, so is he.   – Prov 23:7

Avoiding limelight

Starting this blog was a source of HUGE anguish for me. Much gnashing of teeth. I did it not because I wanted it in my heart, I did it because He said to. And He was right on the money, I could never have imagined all the good that could come from sharing my experiences and the lessons I have learned on this blog!

It wasn’t in my heart or in my thoughts to do this, it was His plan, His words. So… this year I will be making a change and following God’s words about me and not my heart’s words about me.

Very very scary. Much anguish!

I looked for ways out of it, but God had already laid the plans for me and the confirmations were already there. As I asked questions, I already had the answers. It’s now just a matter of not listening to my self-esteem and listening to God’s plan for me.

Now it’s about NOT listening to how my heart causes me to think, but knowing He has a plan for me,

For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. – Jeremiah 29:11

(Also read my post: God has a plan to prosper you… what to do while you wait)

I need to set my thoughts on this truth… knowing that He has already prepared a path for me to walk in

For we are God’s [own] handiwork (His workmanship), recreated in Christ Jesus, [born anew] that we may do those good works which God predestined (planned beforehand) for us [taking paths which He prepared ahead of time], that we should walk in them [living the good life which He prearranged and made ready for us to live]. – Eph 2:10

And you too!

And I’m writing this for you, because He has a plan for you and a path already prepared for you too. Listen to Him. Listen to Him. Listen to Him. Persist O woman of great faith!

Filed under: Healing, Hope , Hope

7 things you can do to get emotional healing

In this post I list 7 exact things that you can do which probably will help you to get out of a cruddy life and into a life that you enjoy living. It’s not a quick process, because these 7 things involve change and they will require you to think them through and take action.

Taking action can be hard for some. And for others, they are already in action, but it’s the wrong action and they don’t really want to be doing what they are involved in – for them it’s not about taking action, it’s about changing from old things to new things.

So here are the 7 things

• Firstly, understand and use boundaries
• Secondly, take ownership
• Thirdly, be conscious with your life and your choices
• Fourthly, make decisions!
• Fifthly, there is how it should be… and then how it is
• Sixthly, look for what gives you healthy joy and energy/life
• Seventhly, grab hold of the steering wheel

Here are the items, each with a description… your recovery and living a happy life depends on you living our the life He prepared for you in advance. How do you know what it is? It’s already within you and it’s what you were designed to do… it’s what you enjoy doing.

For we are God’s [own] handiwork (His workmanship), recreated in Christ Jesus, [born anew] that we may do those good works which God predestined (planned beforehand) for us [taking paths which He prepared ahead of time], that we should walk in them [living the good life which He prearranged and made ready for us to live]. – Eph 2:10

The 7 things are…

Firstly, understand and use boundaries

We have to have our own boundaries.

Secondly, take ownership

My central observation to the whole thing about being an adult is this… there must come a time when a person faces their past and takes ownership of it. No matter what came before, no matter what “gift” the past gave you, there comes a time to own it and begin to change it.

Some things shaped you to get to here. Now you must begin to shape yourself going forward. It’s a conscious decision followed by daily actions.

It looks something like this…

You change from being a passive receiver of events, to a creator of events. Yes bad events happened, yes I was kinda left with the “baby” – and it’s a damned ugly baby too! – and yes I have inherited lots of things that shaped me into a person I’d rather not be… but it’s now mine. I own it. And what am I going to do about it?

Thirdly, be conscious with your life and your choices

I read the same thing in a marriage book, that all marriages must become conscious or struggle and eventually end badly. At some point the man and woman must face how they came to own this possible mess that they all marriage – and then own it, and then begin to be conscious about how they love one another and how they plan for the day and weekend so that each other’s needs get met. A conscious marriage.

And recovery from a damaged past requires a conscious person with active decisions. It’s not particularly easy. It’s freaking hard.  Lots to learn. Why? Because severe abuse and abandonment teaches us all the wrong lessons and none of the right lessons.

For example we may learn nothing about personal boundaries, we may therefore not learn how to respect other people’s boundaries. As a result people get upset for (seemingly) no reason at all. (For example that woman this morning!). If we remain unconscious, we can go through years and decades never really understanding the world and people and how to navigate it.

Fourthly, make decisions!

You can stay passive and keep letting life happen to you, or you can make life happen the way it suits you and in a way and at a pace that you prefer. This is a God-honouring thing to actually own the life He gave you, to look after it, to be a good steward of the life He gave. Don’t just let it happen, instead make it happen. That’s the whole idea of using your gifts.

It’s a transition from drinking the milk mom puts on the table, to going out and milking a cow to get it. We don’t want to millk cows, because we grew up with the bottle just magically appearing! Cutting the lawn doesn’t just happen. Having a great weekend is something that has to be planned.

As we grow up we simply have the Christmas feeling, but as an adult we have to make it. The house no longer is lit up and the tree doesn’t just appear when we are an adult.

Someone has to do these things… and that someone is us.

Fun is a decision, its the result of action. Covering your truck with lights results in fun and good feelings. Not covering your truck doesn’t.

Fifthly, there is how it should be… and then how it is

During counselling I began to see my past, I began to see the fallenness of this world, I began to see my own fallenness – and I began to accept all of this as HOW IT IS. Be sad for how it should have been, be sad for the loss of dreams – but strive to accept how it is… because once you accept that this is how IT IS, then you can decide to change it into what you really want.

I often say to people “there is how it should be, and then there is how it is!”. The trick is to get past how it should be, grive the loss of that, move on… move onto “how it is” and deal with that. Ouch. Then come the good stuff… start making decisions about how you want it to become.

For example, science and art says this is the perfect human dimensions… but do you know anyone in your real life that looks like this? I don’t.

Here is another example of how it should be versus how it really is. This is apparently the ideal dimensions for a human face. Do you know anyone who actually looks like this? No, nor do I!!

So there is how life should be and then there is how life is. The two don’t match. No one has the perfect life. You’re not the only one sitting in church on sunday who has a terrible secret… let me be the first to tell you a secret… EVERYONE has a dirty secret. And Jesus came to save them all. It’s normal and expected and it’s ok. So relax.

Sixthly, look for what gives you healthy joy and energy/life

Take some time to look in your life and see if there is something that you enjoy doing, which brings you great joy to do (or even just a little joy is fine too!). If it is consistent with Christianity and consistent with the message of Jesus Christ, then He probably it within you!

For we are God’s [own] handiwork (His workmanship), recreated in Christ Jesus, [born anew] that we may do those good works which God predestined (planned beforehand) for us [taking paths which He prepared ahead of time], that we should walk in them [living the good life which He prearranged and made ready for us to live]. – Eph 2:10

So if you look inside yourself, what do you see? No, not the yucky stuff… what else do you see? What passion has God placed within you which is waiting for you to live it out?

Is it … a passion to take pictures of His handiwork? A passion to travel and minister? I passion to heal and bring comfort? A passion to open your home and welcome people to dinners, showing His love for them through you? A passion for teaching children and church? There is a passion within you, and a “predestined (planned beforehand) … path … which He prepared ahead of time” within you.

During these recent years I received much advice, but these next two are great pieces of advice that applies to this situation. One of the three Christian counsellors who truly had a life-changing impact on me, he and his wife said these words that I can never forget “maybe travelling is his dream. he needs to find his dream and live it” or some words to that effect.

Travelling is a passion of mine, but it’s not my dream. But I learned from those words. I have learned that it is not possible to live a life happily without first connecting to a dream or a vision which matches our inner most desires.

One thing I must quickly say is that our dream can’t be a person or a place, it’s a life and an ambition. Our happiness is not in a specific human being, that’s unhealthy and it’s called stalking.

It is true that He gives us our inner desires (Psalm 37:4), but I don’t think that scripture says He gives us what we want, I think He places it within us to want what He wants!

[Not in your own strength] for it is God Who is all the while effectually at work in you [energizing and creating in you the power and desire], both to will and to work for His good pleasure and satisfaction and delight. – Phil 2:13

Seventhly, grab hold of the steering wheel

A random loving person said to me as we chatted on the side of a street said to me “grab hold of the sterring wheel and never again let it go“. Those words are true and still ring true.

In my life, due to circumstance or events or being perpetually shell-shocked (dissociation, attachment disorder, whatever) I never actually took the reigns to my own horse that I was sitting on.

I never grabbed hold of the thing that steers the boat that I was travelling in.

But when I understood that Jesus came to give me abundant life and He had blessed me with desires in my heart, plus, He intended me to live using the gifts He has given me… then I understood that it was up to me to LIVE and live ABUNDANTLY.

So I began to watch more positive Christian musicand I dumped all my commercial music that focussed on negatives – which as it turned out was all of it!

• Switchfoot – Meant to live
  
• Switchfoot – Dare You To Move

And God asked me to no longer bring newspapers into my new house and eventually I switched off my tv to avoid the news. It was also at this time that God challenged me to believe the bible exactly as it is written. It seems like a small change

The second half

But if you think that’s the end of the story, you are mistaken. It’s the start to the second half of the story.

In the process of healing I reached a moment only two years ago when I suddenly healed and began to exist. In my journals there is a moment where I journal – with shock – that yesterday I didn’t exist. Some people will understand what had happened, I had healed to the place where the real me had emerged.

Now the real work started. I had to learn so many new things. I had to reprocess so many memories. I had to integrate the things God told me over the years – almost all of which had never come true… but now began to come true. I had to learn about personal boundaries, how to read people’s emotions (without looking like you are staring!) and I had to figure out what was normal and what wasn’t.

It’s now 2 year later and I’m still trying to figure it all out. Not only do individuals have different boundaries seemingly randomly placed all over their life, but society also has boundaries that are declared and many many that are undeclared and you only find out after you have stepped over them.

No wonder God gives humans 18 years in the home before launching into society… there is so much to learn, so much to adapt to. I am only 2 years into this process and I think I’m doing pretty darn well thank you!

Heck of a two years huh?

Filed under: Church, Healing , christian, Christianity, Church, Jesus Christ

Tips to recover from depression (faith, hope, love)

This post is about using hope/optimism to get you out of the past and into the present, into the truth of what is around you.

It’s written in the first person (me!) and in realtime, as if it’s happening right now. If this story makes sense to you then please read to the bottom and read the next post which will come in 2 days. I hope these two will help you get into the present and see the good around you.

There are three parts to this post:

1. Using the eyes of our past
2. Using our real eyes to see the good around us
3. Using eyes of faith to see the hope/optimism ahead

1. Using the eyes of our past

I want to get up, but I stay down. I can see it’s not a viable strategy for the long term, but I stay down anyway. I always enjoy the feeling of energy and enthusiasm that I usually have flowing through my veins. It’s exhillarating. But not today. It seems like I’m on a good wicket and then something happens and it looks bleak, like I will lose everything. I deflate and give up. “I knew it. It’s always like this” is my explanation style. I stay flat and defeated. No energy. Bored.

Capable of so much, but seemingly doomed to lose everything every time. Why gather the harvest if someone else will take it away? (But look what God has to say: Is 62:9 and Is 37:30). I feel like I’m halfway between the past and the present. It’s partly that I believe the lies that I can’t do what I aspire to, or that if I succeed then it will upset someone, or when I have succeeeded then someting will come and sabotage what I have achieved. I feel like I have no control. I may as well not even try.

But it is my explanation style which is actually keeping me trapped. Instead of seeing a challenge, I see certain defeat. Instead of seeing a hiccup or slight pause, I see a repeat of past failure. Fear immobilizes me. Yes it’s less than it used to be and I recover faster than ever before. The setbacks are measured in minutes rather than weeks or days.

All I see are the mountains ahead and I know I don’t have the energy in my body to go over them, no will, no desire to overcome. I know normally I could move over them with easy and sustained steps, because they aren’t actually mountains. But viewed from the bottom of the pit they look higher, steeper, more energy sapping than they really are. Slight inclines look like ravines sides from in the pit.

2. Using our real eyes to see the good around us

And suddenly the confrontation is over. I won. I see myself again, not my past, not my hidden traumas, not my sad stories. I am me again and I see my life as it is, spread out before me, a banquet of experiences and treats and relationships to be had.

To the naiive the experiences ahead contain light and dark, good and bad – they can hurt and reward. The future looks uncertain to them. From there. But to those with a good understanding of boundaries, they know they can avoid the bad well before it arrives. They also know that they can steer teir life toward the good experiences that are just over there.

The energy slowly seeps back into my body via my head, through my eyes. I’m seeing the world as it really is now, the tables, the kind people around me, the fun and laughter to be had, the colours. The eyes of my memory fade, the dangers of my past, the hidden traumas no longer look present with me, they no longer confront me, they no longer look dangerous.

As light floods my thoughts I am here, now. The darknes that had seemingly flooded the room has left. Shadows of my distant past are no longer here with me. They have gone back to the distant past. Here with me now is my life. Banished to the distant past are those thoughts and concerns. I say to myself, I felt that then, I don’t face that now.

I’m here, now. Before me are challenges abd tests which I am more than able to handle. I’m not who I was. I am who I am now. What’s done is done. I’m here now. My proven track record is a good one. I am safe. With the help of boundaries I will remain safe.

3. Using eyes of faith to see the hope/optimism ahead

But I hope for more than just to be safe. I will express myself. I will walk in the path that God has prepared for me (Eph 2:10). The dark shadows of memories that seemed to stand in front of me for a few moments, they seemed so real, so present, so now… they are banished, sent back to my distant past. That’s not me. I’m the one who balances my budget. I have gifts for people. People enjoy my company. I help people heal. I have a wonderful relationship with the God of Heaven. I have a destony and “you can’t stop prophecy”.

I look around me. Where is the pit that I thought was there? Where are the ghosts that clouded my reality for a short time? They tried to tell me that I am as I was. No. I repeat: NO. God tells me who I am and He tells me. And I choose to believe it.

My “eyes of faith” look even further into the future. My destiny is safely still there. Waiting. Over those slight inclines (not mountains after all!) Look, it is closer than it has ever been! It’s a great time to be me. I’m here. I’m going there. Here is good. There is better. I never need to look back.

Fear not, for you shall not be ashamed; neither be confounded and depressed, for you shall not be put to shame. For you shall forget the shame of your youth, and you shall not [seriously] remember the reproach of your widowhood any more. – Isaiah 54:4

This is my real, learned experience. Hope and optimism is the anti-dote to depression. I guess thats why the bible says it’s one of the big three: faith, hope, love. May God bless you in your journey!

Filed under: Healing, Prophecy , christian, Christianity, Jesus Christ, Prophecy

You matter to God

• He looked around the earth, before I knew Him. He saw me and reached out to me.
• He chose me.
• He knows the number of hairs on my head.
• God loves me.
• I am a child of God.
• I am worthy.

We can only love others as we love ourselves. If you have respect, boundaries and love for yourself (you take care of you) then you will have plenty to give others – just like in the picture below:

If you are empty of love on the inside, you will not have all that much love to pour into those around you.

We can truly love and respect ourselves if we understand what God thinks of us… and what does He think of us? He loves us.

Filed under: Healing

WikiHow – for learning about “how to”

If you’ve got a moment and you want to learn some interesting healthy things, try this site wikihow. The quality of the information is very useful and well laid out. I find one of the key things in recovery is to deepen your eq – emotional quotient. In other words, learn about what people need and respond to, learn about yourself, learn about how to behave in groups, learn about social norms. This kind of thing will result in faster recovery because you can fit in better and form deeper relationships.

Here are some randomly picked articles that could benefit anyone:

• Christian (all)
• How to Live a Good Christian Life
• How to Be a Devoted Christian Teenager

and…

• Confident (all)
• How to Be Confident
• How to Feel Confident
• How to Appear Confident

and…

• Healthy (all)
• How to Choose Healthy Snacks
• How to Have a Healthy Relationship
• How to Grow Healthy Plants

And a few more randomly chosen ones…

• How to Be Humble
• How to Brag Without Being Arrogant
• How to Cope With Arrogant People 
• How to Be Charming
• How to Appear Confident
• How to Regain Confidence
• How to Avoid Coming off As Pretentious
• How to Be Proud, Not Cocky and Conceited
• How to Speak Well and Confidently

I have read some articles and immediately benefitted from it. I confess I haven’t read all these links above… I just want to get you introduced to this fantastic resource. So that’s a few examples of the very very useful information on this wiki. And because it is a wiki you can contribute your own hard won experience to it!

Always remember this tip from the book of Nehemiah – it’s the people of the city who rebuilt the walls of the city and they build the bit which is closest to their house. That’s you and me mate! 

Filed under: Healing

Sifting the wheat

For a while before writing There is a wolf in amongst the sheep (Todd Bentley/Florida Outpouring) I have been wondering what exactly is happening and why is it happening? And if what is happening is not right, then there are some questions we can fairly ask ourselves…

1. how do we survive the water that is now washing away people’s faith
2. what is God doing?
3. what should the church be doing, where should it’s focus be, what should it be pursuing?

On the way to write this I spent time with a strong Christian believer and she saw me burst into a sweat. I felt this massive heat all over my body. We laughed, we could feel the Holy Spirit in real power. After a while she compassionately began to wonder about fiddling with her aircon. I write these words knowing that teachers get judged. Lord Jesus please help me to speak correctly, please shut my mouth where needed.

1. Surviving the water, repelling the scourge

In the last post I wrote about how to survive the water that is coming and has come and will be coming based on Isaiah 28:14-22. I desribed the centrality of the cross in that 2500 year old scripture! I described how you need to stand on that Rock and fend off whatever comes against you.

A small group of people in my city are doing exactly this and we are seeing real healings and the spiritual condition of this city is changing – for the better. A friend of mine reports that the mid-week bible lesson at her local church is suddenly filling up. I totally expect churches to begin to fill up in the not-to-distant future as righteousness grows and grows and as His life spread to everyone.

Listen! The Lord of Lord, the God of the Angel Armies (Host), the King of Kings, the Lamb… they are sifting in a sieve right from wrong.

Righteousness is growing up like a plant. Righteousness is raining down from the Heavens.

Darkness is in full retreat where people have real faith in Jesus as the Christ who said these words “be of good cheer, I have overcome the world and made it safe for you!”.

What is sifting?

1. Isaiah 30:28
   His breath is like a rushing torrent, rising up to the neck. He shakes the nations in the sieve of destruction; he places in the jaws of the peoples a bit that leads them astray.
   
2. Amos 9:9
   “For I will give the command, and I will shake the house of Israel among all the nations as grain is shaken in a sieve, and not a pebble will reach the ground.

Sifting in a sieve is where people become confused. Is it this way or that? That or this? In your head and in your faith you run around and around in a tight circle. You run from this scripture to that one and then the next and back to the first – but you never actually get the breakthrough. You hear a voice and you think it’s God, but the word doesn’t happen. Then another word from someone else. A confirmation. A contradiction.

You learn to live on endless amounts of hope. Hope keeps your faith going. You feel your breakthrough is just there, just over there. Always with the hope. As they say: always the bridesmaid but never the bride.

Eventually you learn to ignore all voices. Round and round. It’s exhausting! Is this you? Relax. There is a solution.

So… yes in our little group we are seeing tremendous things. Amazing! But. I am waiting until the testimonies are settled and until the people are emotionally ready to share their testimony, before I put them up here. What we are seeing is just amazing. I have more to share and explain, but I will wait until the testimonies are ready and you can be encouraged by them. I know people don’t listen unless they SEE signs and wonders. And I think that is fair enough, very reasonable.

Why do we have a breakthrough over sickness and over darkness? Why now? It’s simple. We are staying on the Rock. Jesus is the Christ. He has set aside sin. He has abolished sin. He has anulled death. His life has spread to everyone. These are the biblical scriptures that is our foundation for our faith. Get that sorted out and then you resist and he flees. Sickness flees. Darkness flees.

since a death has taken place which rescues and delivers and redeems them – Heb 9:15

Ok wait. Hehehe. “Flees” might not be the right word. At first he gets nervous, hoping you will give up or get distracted. But stand firm. It is done! You are an overcomer. Resist! Then he moves away a bit. Will you stop now? Or do you want him entirely out of your house, home and life? Resist! Stand! Command “get behind me!!” And he flees. It should work… and the good news is IT DOES work. And two can put 10,000 to flight!! Woohoo!

That is what stops the sifting right there – the two criteria are to know who He is and what He came to do and to accept it (see Christ, Son of God, righteous) AND to resist and stand and resist and stand.

2. What is God doing?

It’s a dangeous business to think you can say anything about what God is doing. It’s just as risky to speak out about the church – even if God is backing you wholeheartedly. Before you know it, your friends are gone and someone is preaching loudly and with passion about submission and staying planted.

But… knowing the risks, I am empowered to speak out anyway. You can listen and disagree, that’s fine. I can be wrong. I apologize to you if I am. But if I am not, if the Holy Spirit tweaks something in you… then maybe sit down and listen up.

So, I spent months wondering what is happening? I first saw the vast increase in the darkness about 5 years ago. Maybe 3 years ago it suddenly increased dramatically. I was struggling with addiction and vast emotional damage back then, so I thought it was just me. Then I heard a prophecy that said that God had permitted people to become affected by the movies they choose to watch. I knew this, because I sometimes had to close my eyes and I could feel stuff pouring over the people.

We should have been publically speaking out against evil. We should be actively protecting teenagers. We should stop porn on the internet. Stop abortions. We should be raising our moral standards, not rewarding those who lower them. But we didn’t. And the church – by and large – didn’t either.

So we were given over to what competed with God for our time, our affections and our moral values. It began to deeply touch us, deeply affect us and deeply change us.

Some of you are freaked out by what I am writing. I do not mean to be offensive, but perhaps this post is not intended for you.

Some of you have been experiencing these same things and you probably feel enormously relieved to hear someone else make sense of your world. I am writing for you. If this applies to you and you have been waiting for this post, let me say it again DO NOT leave a comment on my blog or on this post.

God loves His church! It is His bride!

At that time I watched the anointing disappear from a local church and gradually disappear from a huge church in a city nearby. (There’s much more to both stories). I totally struggled to understand what I was seeing. I saw people doing bad prayers in church and none of the leadership seemed to notice.

I asked God why this was and it seems we have erred in not choosing leadership that are filled with the Holy Spirit – as Paul so clearly commanded us to do. We have put lambs in positions of leadership over other lambs. A bit of a mess. And very vulnerable to wolves. But it’s easily fixed, it just takes time and determination for you to change how you do things.

Church after church seemed to be struggling – I could see it in the spirit. But on stage the facade was maintained. It was very confusing. We simply would not admit our poverty and need. So our poverty was permitted to increase, to create desperation.

I kept saying to myself one thing over and over – this is God’s church, it’s His bride, He loves His church, He loves His bride. I stand absolutely by that. God loves His bride as I would love my own bride, with all my heart and mind and life.

During that time I noticed a dramatic change. I heard John Arnott of Toronto slander the church. I noticed this also happened through a local prophet speaking at the church I was going to. Then at the Open Heavens Conference several leaders including Todd Bentley severely slandered and mocked the church. Another two self-proclaimed Melbourne-based prophets emerged claiming they had been taken aside by God and He had revealed to them how disgusted He felt by His church. They proclaimed He was about to “lower the boom on the church”. John Arnott said the same thing. I couldn’t figure it out.

What is this? How can it be? I wondered at this growing anti-church trend a lot. These speakers were openly slandering His bride. And spiritually they didn’t look “ok” to me. God LOVES His church, why don’t these “church leaders” KNOW that? I couldn’t figure it out – what I was seeing? What is going on?

An idiscriminant outpouring?

So let’s go back to our question. 2. What is God doing? I could find two possible answers. It is possible that God is currently pouring out Rev 8:3-5 the censer/bowl filled with the prayers and with incense from God’s altar. I admit that is possible because it seems to me that in the scripture, the censer is poured out quite randomly. It’s just chucked out onto the earth. Heave! And it splashes out. (And then the bad bowls containing IMMENSE trouble begins to be poured out.)

So is Todd Bentley (TB) and the Florida Outpouring (FO) or Lakewood Revival (LR) that censer bowl? In some ways it seems similar. This TB/FO/LW “revival” is also indiscriminant – because unlike 1904, 1906 and every other revival in history – you don’t need to accept Jesus Christ paid for your sins and restored you to God, you can get it by touching a computer screen, you don’t receive a new heart and also unlike previous revivals, your life doesn’t entirely change.

Gah! It simply doesn’t fit the bill of what we call Christianity. It almost seems to be a new religion, it’s just that different in the way that Paul wrote “That I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection” (Phil 3:10). It’s not at all connected to the writings about righteousness being necessary to eat from the tree of life, holiness is needed to drink from the river of life, wearing clothes cleansed in His blood allowing us to come near to His glory – and these things only come by faith in His completed work on the cross.

Through His resurrection – after the cross – we can become kings or priests if we will believe (and we usually don’t, because it’s unfashionable to teach “meat”). But it’s only the meatiness that enables us to resist the immense water that threatens to wash us away from our flimsy faith.

So what’s happening?

But yet the confusing thing is that I think God IS doing this. Huh? What the?!

So let’s first answer one thing at a time. Could it be that God is pouring out His censer indiscriminantly? Simply hurling it out on the earth for anyone to have. No repentance. No need of the cross. Why would He work towards the marriage of humanity to Christ for 8000 years… only to undermine the whole thing near the end and waste all of that effort?

So the answer is… surely He isn’t pouring out the censer. After much soul searching I don’t believe that is happening.

We’re still asking “2. What is God doing?“. I think we can happily assume there is something else going on. It’s not the censer being poured out – that is still to come, or is coming.

So what else can we find in the bible that is consistent with our faith and makes sense of what God is doing with His church, His bride. Something that moves the bride along, even if it means a reconfiguring, a changing, a washing away of old rubbish and maybe a time of enabling the new. The new must be in line with His purposes, His mystery as revealed by and in Jesus Christ (the “mystery” passages are Eph 3:4 and 1 Cor 2:7 and Eph 6:19)

I have found one thing that matches what He has been saying to me for many years about His church. My head was so filled with submission to authority teaching that I resisted God night after night. I was taught that to disobey the church was to disobey God. Wrong! I had been taught that God only ever is sweet and nice and lovely. Apparently not! He disciplines too. He brings correction. He urges us to change and go forward. He cuts away and then builds up.

Think about the power given the Jeremiah. Jer 1:10 says He gave Jeremiah the power to build up AND tear down and destroy. My faith was taught to be terribly immature and consequently it was limited and when trouble came I was wholly unprepared. But the good news is after the bad bits are brought down, after the people and leaders wake up to their poverty and make adjustments, after that comes Jer 31:28!

And it will be that as I have watched over them to pluck up and to break down, and to overthrow, destroy, and afflict [with evil], so will I watch over them to build and to plant [with good], says the Lord. – Jer 31:28

First the sifting and tearing down, then the planting and building up. Hallelujah. How long does the sifting have to last? Well that depends… how quickly can you learn and change?

Is 28:2-13 contains the problem

So what is that one thing I kept hearing from God over the years? That one thing that God had been speaking to me about is this: as described in Isaiah (and in Jeremiah) His “prophets” have been telling the church for a long long time that everything is ok, and the church has dramatically compounded the problem by commanding the prophets to speak only good words to her. The end result is the bride is terribly mixed – A speckled bird and that is a reference to Jer 12:9. And I believe the Holy Spirit adds these words “that cannot fly“.

Leaders… do not deny you commanded your prophets to speak only good words. I have heard these words with my own ears. Many very popular books on prophecy said the same thing, that new testament prophets only build up the body. Prophets are not taught to speak the actual truth, but only to say what leaders want to hear.

It’s a sad and very vulnerable state. The church should be listening to the Holy Spirit for truth, direction and guidance. (But, the good news is that it is fixable).

I have explained how taking a stand on Jesus Christ (as revealed in Isaiah 28:14-22) is the solution. Now let me explain the problem. It is contained immediately preceding verses Isaiah 28:2-13 (and we also need to look at Isaiah 29:13-14.)

In v5 He promises that the remnant who battle at the gate will know Jesus as their strength, as a diadem (jewel) of beauty, a crown of glory…

v5-6 [But] in that [future Messianic] day the Lord of hosts shall become a crown of glory and a diadem of beauty to the [converted] remnant of His people, And a spirit of justice to him who sits in judgment and administers the law, and strength to those who turn back the battle at the gate.

Think about that. The people who battle at the gate will come to know Him. The people who battle.

WOAH!!! There’s a battle? Why didn’t anyone tell me! Yes. Hmmm… come to think of it the divorce rate in the church is HIGHER than in the world. Our men are just as addicted to porn as the world. Uhhh… oh dear… yes there IS a battle – and if we stop and think for a moment, we seem to be losing. The church may have more money than ever, more people coming to Jesus to be eternally saved, but the people are losing the battle in their personal lives, they are not being saved here and now (just eternally).

I remember one day coming home from church. I had this strong travail in me. (Travail is when you feel God’s sad emotion on something.) I sat in the car park crying. I didn’t know what I was crying for. I wanted to go and do my shopping, but tears wouldn’t stop coming. I walked into Coles fighting back the tears, wondering what was happening to me. (I was younger then). I then had this clear vision of people being gathered by arms into an unloving church.

God’s emotion was sadness to the point of crying for these people coming in with the hope of being healed and loved – saved from an unloving world – and then they come into a church where they are used as a resource and their money is taken. The love of God never comes to them. They are not restored. They are not healed.

Give me some good news please!

Ok, ok. Not all churches are losing. Not all people are losing in their personal lives. In my observation the churches who

1. who focus on the gospel of Jesus Christ,
2. who sing songs about His cleansing blood and His new life,
3. who teach the meat (the new covenant), and
4. who have an abundance of pastors to love and manifestly care for the flock
5. who encourage actual manifest acts of love, fellowship and one anothering

it is at those churches where the people are gradually cleaning up. It can be easily seen in their faces. Cleaner and cleaner. These churches are on the Rock. They are shepherding their sheep well. Living waters are flowing to their attendees. Congrats.

But to the rest… you are NOT on the Rock of the gospel… hurry up and get onto the Rock!

I encourage you to read v7-13. I won’t repeat it here. You have taught using rules and rules and rules [merely monotonous repeatings of]. You have not taught love and longsuffering and patience to your lambs. You have taught your prophets to speak only sweet words into your ears. You ARE going to “go and fall backward, and be broken and snared and taken”…

v13 Therefore the word of the Lord will be to them [merely monotonous repeatings of]: precept upon precept, precept upon precept, rule upon rule, rule upon rule; here a little, there a little–that they may go and fall backward, and be broken and snared and taken.

God is doing Isaiah 29:13-14

Read these words and be astonished at what God is saying. He WILL do amazing things BECAUSE/forasmuch why?

And the Lord said, Forasmuch as this people draw near Me with their mouth and honor Me with their lips but remove their hearts and minds far from Me, and

their fear and reverence for Me are a commandment of men that is learned by repetition [without any thought as to the meaning],

therefore, behold! I will again do marvelous things with this people, marvelous and astonishing things; and the wisdom of their wise men will perish, and the understanding of their discerning men will vanish or be hidden. – Isaiah 29:13-14

He is doing marvellous things BECAUSE… because He is sifting us with a sieve. Yes these things are from Him, but they are not what we think they are.

How dare you Mark?

Do I have God’s permission to speak to you like this? To possibly enrage you in this way? Yes. I have His permission. On Dec 3, 2007 God asked me personally to feed His lambs. Two weeks ago He gave me something in my hand. He then changed my life in a second experience that same night. Last week He opened my mouth. This week He did the same.

3. What should the church be doing?

I have kept quiet and watched the church stumble for years. From their body language I assumed they knew what was happening. Surely they knew about the demonic walking down the aisles or standing next to some people in the pews? I submissively kept quiet as I watched the anointing – it looks like a bubble overhead – fall away. Obediently I watched as wonderful Christians and their marriages begin to struggle terribly.

Hey! Confession time. I have also stumbled terribly in my life. I have known pain. I understand addiction. I came under terrible oppression. I experienced the sifting. Me = you. You = me.

BUT. We don’t need to be like this!! My confession that Jesus is the Christ stopped the sifting. I got my faith onto the Rock and now I can stand in the face of the water and hail. You can too. You need to. Your church needs you to. Your city needs you to.

And when you have learned to overcome through Christ Jesus, through His righteousness, through His life which He has given to you – that is when you will be an overcomer. You will be a restorer of the cities.

And your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt; you shall raise up the foundations of [buildings that have laid waste for] many generations; and you shall be called Repairer of the Breach, Restorer of Streets to Dwell In. – Is 58:12

Bad people will flee your city – after a fight. Evil will be turned away. High walls will be established. Righteousness will grow up like a plant and righteousness will rain down from the sky.

Always remember, it was the people who rebuilt the walls. The church is His people. His people are the church. Jesus died for people, not for buildings. The buiildings are needed to help His people gather. The people build the “house” only so that the house can feed, love and help His people.

How does the house and His leaders help His people? By teaching them who He is, who they (His people) are, what He did for them, what He wants them to become and especially that they are to love one another.

Stand up and fight for what you believe

So in summary… God SENT the Assyrian and God SENT the water to cause a remnant to stand up and fight at the gates. God chose to do amazing and remarkable things to CAUSE the people to completely go astray. Sometimes things have to get a lot worse before we can see the problem and correct it.

That remnant which fights at the gates will come to know Jesus Christ as their strength. They will know Him as their diadem (jewel) and and as their crown of glory.

• Whether you are a part of that remnant depends on whether you learn how to fight and then go fight!
• Whether or not you are a pastor does NOT depend on if you run a church, it doesn’t depend on your age – it depends on your willingness to teach people to love each other.
• Whether or not you are a shepherd depends on if you can find shelter in Jesus Christ. If you know how to do that – really, actually, in a manifest way – then you are a shepherd… so go shepherd! If you do not know how to do that, then spend time with someone who does. If you can’t find anyone, then pray and ask the Holy Spirit to really change your heart, to really open the eyes of your heart, to really lead you – and get seriously busy with your bible.

I recommend you set your face like steel (be strong and very courageous – Joshua 1:6, 7, 9, 18) and learn what Jesus did for you, stand on it to free yourself AND overcome the enemy AND THEN turn and set others free IN JESUS NAME.

Filed under: Church, Healing, Prophecy, Revival , christian, Christianity, Church, Jesus Christ, Prophecy, Revival

How to fill up the lonely hurt inside

This post is part of a series and I recommend you read both:

• How to fill up the lonely hurt inside (newer)
• What to do when you’re feeling empty inside

You may have seen a previous post of mine from long ago: What to do when you are feeling empty inside. It is by far the most popular post on this site and is the most read post almost every day. I have been feeling the need to write about love and healing again for a while now – and this is the beginning of that.

Disclaimer: If someone was to come up to me and poke their finger in my face and accuse me of still struggling with addictions, still struggling with self esteem, still struggling to love myself, still struggling to find motivation on some days… then I would say yes to them… you are right, I do.

But then I see that these days are less and less frequent and the trend is UP. I then realize how far I have come and what I have learned. I also see that the fruit of my experience is good and what I have to share is good and I know I can write something that can help others.

I am not a trained counsellor, but I have been called “an accidental volunterr”. I simply love loving people. As a result, I help a lot of hurt people the best I can. I don’t look for them, they find me and usually they have no one else to turn to. 

It is not an exaggeration to say that I almost never hear a story of trauma/hurt that I have not experienced myself. When I tell people even a fraction of what I have been through, they ask me how I survived.

I hesitate to write, because I am not 100% healed and done and dusted. So it feels like a lack of integrity for me to talk about how to heal and recover. Although I am still struggling in some ways, I have a lot of experience in recovery, I have a lot to share – and I will try to share some of it in a way that is integrous and safe. If it works for me, there is no reason why it won’t work for you. I don’t have it all together, but I have some and I can share that some with you.

Recently someone left a comment on that “empty” post and I think it is such an excellent summary of what hurt people experience, that I will list the main points here and then I can explain the way out. This is what this person wrote (you can read the full version by clicking that link) in bullet points with my thoughts:

• I am lost, unsure of everything and
• I do not feel alive inside

So many people feel this way, it is astonishing to me. Whenever someone says they feel “lost, unsure” I always think to recommend a book by Dr. Henry Cloud (he wrote the boundaries books). He is a Christian and his excellent book is called “Changes that heal“. I recommend it.

• I have felt this way for as long as I can remember due to many bad experiences from abuse in childhood
• to extreme anger at my mother who raised me alone
• and a father who abandoned me and her before I was born
• and a violent relathionship that went on for 7 years

This person has listed the 4 reasons that have caused her current way of feeling extremely accurately. I highlighted the key problems in green.

• my anger and not being able to forgive is like a paralysis for me
• the rage I am feeling is destroying me

I think that anger over what has happened is completely appropriate in this situation. The bible says to BE ANGRY, but don’t sin. Here is a really fantastic study on anger.

Figure out who in your life is good for you and who is bad for you – and get away from the bad ones. A lot of anger and rage comes from being around harmful people. Get away from them and your rage may decrease. Get around loving people and how you feel about yourself will certainly improve.

• I am begining to see forgiveness as a weakness because the same people often wrong you again.. boundaries or not.. how many times can you forgive.

You mentioned boundaries. If people are still boundary-busting then your boundaries are too weak. You may have to do the hard work in figuring out who in your life is harmful to you and remove them from your life if they won’t change. You simply must look after you.

Children want the milk to be put on the table, they don’t want to go milk a cow. They want bread – with no crusts! – and they don’t want to go harvest the wheat and mill it to make the bread.

Adult children also suffer from this same childlike outlook on life. How does someone become an adult child? Abused people sometimes get stuck and maybe haven’t grown up inside because they feel emotionally tired inside. They may be able to do all the normal things to manage a day to day life, but emotionally they hunger for a parent. Adult children still want parents to look after them.

But. You and I are the adults now. Even if we have parents, we perhaps can’t rely on them for affirmation and support and healthy guidance. We are the adult now. Even if its exhausting and deep down we still want a parent to look after us… we are adults now. We must look after ourselves.

• I seem to have over the years only ever kept in my head the bad things that people have said.. silly when I have had more compliments than insults

Let me explain how this works. When we are children, we internalize what our parents teach us. Don’t walk across the road, hold an adults hand. Don’t talk to strangers (“stranger danger!”). Don’t run with sharp knives. These lessons are taught by parents and our mind stores them so thatwhen no adult is around, we can remember what the lessons in life are and they will help us survive.

So every child grows up in a home where they hear messages that they store for later use. That later use is like a tape recorder. The lucky child has their life shaped in a good way. That is stored and played back later on when the parent is no longer around. Unlucky children are given awful lessons and those rules are played back later in life – with bad results.

A lucky child grows up and sees their parents fight fair and with good boundaries and reconciliaton and ongoing love between the parents. That child then learns how to fight, and later in life that child repeats what he/she has learned and follows the messages as they are played over and over in that child’s head.

But an unlucky child has terrible lessons and messages stored in their head. They repeat over and over as an adult, shaping a life in a bad way.

BUT do not think you are a victim to this. You can stand up and reprogram your thoughts. Argue back and tell the truth to yourself. You can learn to have a positive explanation style (see my post: Getting out of depression (learned helplessness) by learning to be optimistic and get the book I mention in that post!).

“Still trying” continues…

• My self love is at 0%
• I feel I am emotionally bankrupt

Through verbal or physical abuse you may have learned that your value was nothing. Through abandonment you perhaps learned your value was nothing. Through sexual abuse you may have learned that you had some value to someone – but how could you know that they were tricking you?

If you hear God speaking – as some deeply hurt people do – you will probably have heard Him telling you that these “truths” about you are in fact all lies. And yes they are. No matter what your painful surroundings taught you, its a lie.

Here is the truth: Jesus loves you and you have tremendous value.

Jesus didn’t design the world to be like this and I have noticed that many abused persons know that is the truth. We all feel this shouldn’t have happened. Those who have suffered to extremes no longer care about how it should have been, they just try to get through and survive. Even when the danger is in the distant past, they still find no reason to begin loving themselves and begin living again.

This is a very sad state. But it is reversible. How is it reversible? You have to stand up. I know it is hard and exhausting, but you need to do it. Give up being an adult-child and be the adult in your life. For those who are don’t feel they have a good reason to live their life and really give it a go and improve things, to them I offer this biblical “I dare you to do it” statement… go ahead and bring glory to God in your body:

You were bought with a price [purchased with a preciousness and paid for, made His own]. So then, honor God and bring glory to Him in your body. – 1 Cor 6:20

The enemy tried to make you suffer, but you’re here, reading this page, written by a person who knows what it is like to suffer. And now I am gradually learning what it’s like to live an abundant life.

You can bring Him glory by dressing well and taking care of yourself.
You can bring Him glory by doing well in your job and being promoted because of good and honest work.
You can bring Him glory by eating meals that you enjoy.
You can bring Him glory by paying down debt and by storing up when the harvest is good and He has blessed you.
You can bring Him glory by having good boundaries.
You can bring Him glory by using the gifts and talents that He gave you.
You can bring Him glory by using your spare time to share what you have been through with someone else who might be lonely and looking for support as they go through their own journey.

Some people will hear a voice inside say “but I dont want to love myself if no one else loves me”. That is a difficult thought to combat, but you have to speak the truth back, you have to argue back, you have to replace that lie with the truth.

• I know that healing is a lengthy process but I want to be happy right now

This “right now” thing is extremely common. I hear it a lot. When I pray with that person I try to explain that humans can only grow at a certain speed. I ask the person what speed they want God to move at and they say 1 million miles p/h. I ask what their personal speed limit is. They say 40 mph. Usually this gets the message through, but only for a moment.

People who want it all right now are still being adult-children. It’s just not realistic to recover in one second, because you would not recognize yourself! But the people are usually very determined and I pray for their healing and they get a good strong dose of it… their head spins as He heals their brain chemistry… and they struggle to get used to the new them in the days to come. Amazingly that person will then ask for more healing even while they are struggling to get used to the last round of healing!!

It’s great that we want all the healing that God has for us and we believe that Jesus can and does heal and He is Lord over everything and there is no limits to His ability. But. We are the ones who have the speed limit, not Him. Take it a day at a time and be adult about where you are and how far you have come. Be your own parent. Give up your adult-childhood and become the adult in your own life. You have God on your side and you can do it. I am doing it, you can do it too.

• I have locked myself away from most people for the last ten years trying to minimise the contact I have because I feel I am not worthy or that I will be hurt by getting close to people

I also isolated myself after abuse as a teenager. This is very common, but very unfortunate. Isolation, or making yourself be alone (for a variety of reasons) will only extending the length of time you will go on suffering.

Isolation is part of what hurt you as a child and to go on isolating yourself is to extend the hurt. We human beings are social creatures. You may not know that. Your childhood taught you to be isolated. I sat outside my house as a child fighting back tears, fighting back feelings of trauma, telling myself not to feel, I won’t feel, I refuse to feel… until eventually I sat in quietness with this loud rumbling murmur of pain in the background.

What I was doing was trying to get through and survive, trying to keep my head down and not be noticed. To be noticed would bring more suffering. Does that sound familiar to you? I bet it does. But here’s the ironic twist in the story. Unfortunately, my choice was the worst choice I could have made.

If I had spoken out perhaps child welfare would have come and helped my parents, perhaps they would have been forced to confront their issues and heal the home. Perhaps child welfare could have protected me from predators. The isloation I was experiencing would only greatly increase the cycle of damage in my life and make me even more vulnerable to predators.

Isloation is only good if it keeps you away from bad people. But isolation from good friendships as an adult is unhealthy for human beings. Think about it. God is 3 “People” in relationship: Father, Son, Holy Spirit. God began the history of the world with a marriage and He ends it with a Marriage. Jesus walked around with 12 men. He taught about the need for the 1 lonely stray lamb to get back into the group of 99. His bible speaks extensively about the need for fellowship and for one anothering.

“Still trying” wrote more in her comments…

• this is a waste of a life and I want to stop the cycle I am in but dont know how

In the same way that admitting someone is an alcoholic is the first step to recovery, your words above are a vital step to your own recovery. Now take step 1 (get away from bad people) and step 2 (be the adult) and 3 (stop isloating) and 4 (bring Him glory by LIVING your life) and keep going from there.

• why is it that when one thing upsets me it brings up old hurts and I roll them all into one and I can be angry or tearful for days
• why can I move heaven and earth for other people and be so unkind to myself
• I have tried affirmations and prayers but I have to say I want to believe god loves me but I feel so dirty is it really possible?

Please notice the words I highlighted in green. These are words your are using to describe your own thoughts. That gives you a clue to the problem – read on for an explanation.

Joyce Meyer said it so well when she wrote about “The battlefield of the mind“, because it is true – the battle is in the way you think. We can see this truth in God’s bible as well. Prov 23:7 puts it this way: “For as he thinks in his heart, so is he”. I would explain it this way: the lessons we learned (through suffering) are what keeps us bound.

Is it sin that keeps us bound? If you believe that Jesus is the Christ and He has paid for your sins  – as a Perfect Sacrificial Lamb on the cross – then you are freed of the effects of sin. The sin done to you is not able to bind you. Your own sin cannot bind you. Inherited sins cannot bind you. The sins done by Adam and Eve cannot bind you. He has set you free.

But. If Jesus opened the door to your prison and yet we still struggle to leave the prison… it makes sense that something is still keeping us bound. What is stopping us? We can be aware of the problem and we can want to feel better, so what is it that is keeping us bound?

The door to the prison is open, but maybe we don’t know how to use our legs, maybe we think we need help or support or a map to get out, maybe we think we don’t have a good reason to leave, maybe we think there is nothing good for us outside – these are just lies.

The door is open, and we have to change the way we think and get the courage and motivation to leave the prison. Changing our thoughts is tough and I won’t pretend otherwise. The lessons we learned in childhood have been stored and they are repeating inside our head. But we have to stop being adult-children and become the adult in our own lives. We have to speak back to those thoughts and correct them. Speak the truth in love and with kindness, but be firm.

• I am not a unkind person nor do I wallow in self pity, I try to keep my mind and heart open, I do good deeds for others my experiences has enabled me to understand other people who are in pain.. (I sometimes volunteer helping young persons with similar backgrounds)

I have no doubt that God has seen your heart and He is moving Heaven and earth to help you, because of your heart. You are willing to love in spite of your past and this has brought favor on your life. You can and must stand up inside yourself and walk out of this – and He will certainly continue using you as you recover and grow stronger.

I love how The Message can put things so simply sometimes…

Dear, dear Corinthians, I can’t tell you how much I long for you to enter this wide-open, spacious life. We didn’t fence you in. The smallness you feel comes from within you. Your lives aren’t small, but you’re living them in a small way. I’m speaking as plainly as I can and with great affection. Open up your lives. Live openly and expansively! - 2 Cor 6:11-13 (MSG) 

I would not be surprised if for some people the lessons of life are written in LARGE HANDWRITING and we need to hear this message from God over and over until we believe that He has something good for us. So here is a truth from His own lips…

For thus says the Lord–Who created the heavens, God Himself, Who formed the earth and made it, Who established it and did not create it to be a worthless waste; He formed it to be inhabited–I am the Lord, and there is no one else. – Isaiah 45:18

God formed the earth to be inhabited! NOT to be a worthless waste!!! This is the same logic as in the original command which He gave Adam and Eve – and it’s the same command to you in your life.

And God blessed them and said to them, Be fruitful, multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it [using all its vast resources in the service of God and man] – Gen 1:28

So I say to you… GO AHEAD and live your life and IN THAT WAY you will bring honour to God and bring Him glory.

You were bought with a price [purchased with a preciousness and paid for, made His own]. So then, honor God and bring glory to Him in your body. – 1 Cor 6:20

Yes, the enemy brought evil into your life. He comes to steal, kill and destroy. But that is not God’s intention for your life or for the earth. The devil hurt you and your family, but God is greater and He wants you to be fruitful, multiply and fill the earth!

The thief comes only in order to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have and enjoy life, and have it in abundance (to the full, till it overflows). – John 10:10

If you choose, you can begin to recover and move forward now, be the adult in your own life - be the captain of your own ship – and LIVE!

Remember: God did not create your life to be a worthless waste. NO WAY! He created you to be fruitful, multiply and to expand – and in this way to serve God and humanity (in loving them) and this is how you can bring glory to Him in your body.

Uh-oh. This is nearly the end of the post. I know from my own experience that some people will read this to the end and then sit there, wondering why their life has not changed. You read all of this, you agreed with all of it, you want all of it… now the post has nearly ended and your life is not changed. Why not?

Remember: Children want to be GIVEN milk, not go out to the cow and milk it. BE the adult in your life. Get up and go milk the cow. Get up and go harvest the fruit for dinner. Get up and go form friendships. Be fruitful. Multiply!

Some people may say that we are blessed so abundantly that they will just be passive and wait for the blessings to come. Let’s look closer at this. When God promised all those blessings in Deut 28:1-14, did you stop to notice how He promised to bless them? Take a moment to read the blessings in The Message version, it’s very beautiful Deut 28:1-14.

But wait… HOW did He promise to bless them? Are they to be passive? Take a close look in the AMP at some sample verses Deut 28:4-6:

Blessed shall be the fruit of your body and the fruit of your ground and the fruit of your beasts, the increase of your cattle and the young of your flock. Blessed shall be your basket and your kneading trough. Blessed shall you be when you come in and blessed shall you be when you go out. – Deut 28:4-6

Did you notice all that activity? The fruit of your body (the work you do), the work you do with your beasts, your basket (gathering), your kneading trough (the work you do), blessed when you go OUT and IN. There are more wonderful blessings in Ezekiel and there too He says He blesses the work of our hands.

All these things are activities. He wants to bless your LIFE, your activity. So go live!

———————-

Keep on reading

Leave a comment on this page if you’d like? Use a pretend name if you’re not sure you want to reveal your actual name. For further reading these posts might also help you:

• Love God, love others, love yourself – a biblically balanced life 
• Getting out of depression (learned helplessness) by learning to be optimistic 

and also try

• Heal your identity – it will help to fill the emptiness inside
• A vital step to health – thankfulness
• Seeing the truth, accepting, forgiving and recovering

This is a post about forming deeper relationships that let us feel connected and warm inside

• Creating deep intimacy (into-me-see) in relationships 

Or try some other posts that I wrote:

• Why does the bible say to love yourself?
• God has a plan to prosper you… what to do while you wait
• Emotional healing… what’s it like?

This is a post about growing:

• Fantasy stops us growing into adults

God loves you!

Filed under: 48454, Healing

How to stop the emotional-spiritual collapses

In my time as I spend time working with, praying for and listening to hurt people and in particular hurt Christians, I come across some things time and again. I described a very common imbalance in this post: Love God, love others, love yourself – a biblically balanced life and I received some really good feedback on it.

In this post I am describing another problem I commonly see. It’s when people try and try and try to do some “spiritual work” but they keep falling over. Sometimes their health lets them down. Their energy goes. They often burn out and feel terrible. They lift themselves up and try again, only to fall over again. They try to be “faithful” to God, but fall over. They try and try but collapse. It’s not a good look and it’s not really bringing glory to Him, I don’t think. And I would know… I did it for the longest time.

Then I began to get some basic lessons in the Kingdom and my life changed. I wrote Christian burn out cycle and I wrote about The parable of the talents. I now live my life with this parable as a foundation for what I do.

In this post I am writing about another way to grow and avoid the collapses that I see so often.

I read a HECK of a lot of books. I gobble them up and I usually only mention them on this blog if I am 100% sure that they will help. The really good books take me 1-2 years to read, because they contain so much new information and they are so stretching that quite often when I first read them I respond with a “what rubbish!” and I actually remember throwing a book across the room saying “that will NEVER happen!” and in fact 5 years later it is happening. hehehe!

This book “Self Matters” by Dr Phil (and the companion/workbook) is one of those books that has taken me years to digest. When I first bought 3 years ago it I couldn’t get into it. I gave it away. Last year I bought it again, but struggled. Months later I was finally ready for the wisdom Dr Phil was sharing.

He explains SO MANY things in this book, but I want to share just one thing. It’s actually a very well known and accepted “Maslow” hierarchy type of theory.

BTW Did you know Maslow became a Christian after a radical experience with Jesus and just before he died he modified his theories to include spiritual needs?

Maslow made a hierarchy of needs. Dr Phil is describing a hierarchy of emotional needs. Stick with me on this… I promise you won’t regret it.

Did you know Dr Phil is a Christian, I have personally heard his confession of his faith. I was astounded at what I heard and I’m really pleased that I will be seeing him in Heaven.

You have a hierarchy of needs

The basic idea is like a house. If the foundation is weak you can’t go higher. If level 1 is weak you cant build level 2. To build a 20 storey building, the first 19 have to be strong. You can see this same kind of planning logic in the Kingdom of God:

“Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Will he not first sit down and estimate the cost to see if he has enough money to complete it? For if he lays the foundation and is not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule him, saying, ‘This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.’ – Luke 14:28-30

The collapses that so many people experience are because their foundation is not solid.

Your 1st emotional need is SURVIVAL. This is the first and most basic need. If you lived in a home where you weren’t sure that you were going to survive, you would have modified your behavior so that you were able to stay out of the conflicts at all cost.

When the need for survival was met – when you felt safe – you would have been able to begin to focus on the next need, security. You can’t focus on security until you know you will survive.

Your 2nd emotional need is SECURITY. Dr Phil says that there are two types of security needs: emotional and physical. I would add a third security need: financial. So in this level we ask the questions:

• am I emotionally safe?
• am I physically safe?
• am I financially secure?

It is only AFTER the three security needs are met – when you can say “yes I am safe” – THEN you will be able to focus on the 3rd need: love, then the 4th need for self-esteem, then the 5th need for self expression, then the 6th need for intellectual fulfillment and finally the 7th need for spirutual fulfillment.

Now here’s the problem.

Sometimes people are trying to give and receive love in a marriage, but they don’t feel emotionally safe. First they have to feel emotionally safe BEFORE they can give and receive love, because security is the 2nd need and love is the 3rd need.

Here’s another example. Ssometimes people try to have intellectual fulfillment (6th need) in their work and through their ambitions, but they still remain somehow unfulfilled and they somehow keep collapsing. If we look closer perhaps they lack self-esteem (4th need).

In this post I am trying to explain why I often see Christian people struggling so hard to do some ministry (7th and highest need), but they collapse again and again. Why? In my case I lacked financial security (2nd need) and I lacked every need above that one (love, self-esteem etc.)

How on earth could I handle all these people’s problems while still having such a weak foundation in my own life? If I lack security, how can I provide security for my wife? If she and I don’t have security, how can our love life flourish?

So may I suggest that if you are struggling in your ministry and if you are suffering a regular collapse in your spirutual life, take a long honest, hard look at this hierarchy of emotional needs and ask yourself, which one should I focus on so I can become strong enough to do what God wants to do through me.

Here is Dr Phil’s hierarchy of emotional needs… with my own questions that you can ask yourself to figure out where you may be stuck and therefore where you should begin to devote your attention SO THAT later on you can succeed at all the amazing God things you want to do.

1. Survival (is my life protected?)
2. Security (do I have a safe place to stay, kind friends, reliable income?)
3. Love (was I loved in my home as I grew up, or am I hungering for love now in the wrong way?)
4. Self-esteem (do you love, believe in, accept yourself?)
5. Self-expression (am I making my mark on the world in a way that is uniquely me?)
6. Intellectual fulfillment (am I finding answers to the things I want to know about?)
7. Spiritual fulfillment (am I building or participating in something that is bigger than myself for others/God)

No matter where you are or what you need to deal with, everything can be handled. You can do it. Find a friend. Find a Christian counsellor. Talk, talk, talk. Pray. Talk more. And more.

I once asked a counsellor how people heal. He said: “talking“.

FWIW here is a nice list of bible verses that correspond to “planning and management” concepts.

If you like this post you might like

• How to stop the emotional-spiritual collapses
• Love God, love others, love yourself – a biblically balanced life
• Christian burn out cycle
• The parable of the talents – use what you have got (not more)

Filed under: Healing

Love God, love others, love yourself – a biblically balanced life

I spend a lot of time listening to people who are struggling. Sometimes a Christian will struggle even more than others because they have an unbalanced view of God, life and what Jesus did for us… and what we still have to do. The deeper the damage, sometimes the deeper the passivity and immobility.

In other words, when someone is very damaged they rely very deeply on Jesus and have may have very great faith… but still they struggle terribly. This post explains the need for a biblically based balance in our lives. The bible itself describes the components we need to have. We need all of them, together. I’ll explain…

If a person has low self esteem they may be highly focussed on loving God and loving others, but they may choose not to love themselves. They may see themselves as unimportant to God, they may think He wants them to “deny yourself” or “I must become less (while He becomes more)” and in fact those may be some of their most quoted verses. Plus “its not I that lives (but Christ in me)” may be frequently quoted as well.

If the emotional damage goes deeper – where their very survival was threatened - they may have gone further with their thinking and they may have decide that we are called to only love God and have “faith”, but not even love others and not love themselves. They may not realize that this is how they think, they just focus exclusively on God alone.

This kind of thinking is a survival strategy, because the person wants God to save them (and they usually don’t want to be saved by anyone else).

Their fav verse may be “return to your first love” but because the haven’t experienced real love in their lives, they confuse romance with love. They therefore see God as a romance – and their Christianity becomes highly emotional and terribly unbalanced. They experience emotional swings from excitement to dis-illusionment. Music is relied on to lift them up on bad days.

Love God, others, self

Jesus replied, “‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.” – Matt 22:37-40 (see also Deut 6:5 and Lev 19:18)

What is missing is biblical balance. We need all three, not just our fav one. We can only really perform well in our lives when we love God AND ALSO love others AND ALSO love ourselves. All three (God, others, self) are needed to function in a balanced way as a human being. The bible says so! For more of my writing on this see Why does the bible say to love yourself?

Faith, hope and love

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love - 1 Cor 13:13 (see also Col 1:5, 1 Thess 1:3, 1 Thess 5:8)

The same problem can be seen in the balance needed for faith, hope and love. We may value faith over love or hope, but then we have problems later on. Some problems are healed by loving yourself enough to have boundaries to protect yourself. Some problems need hope to be given by a kind trusted friend. Some problems can only be dealt with by having faith in the blood of Jesus shed on the cross.

Law, grace and truth

For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. – John 1:17 (see also John 1:14, Col 1:6 , 2 John 1:3)

Another three concepts that must be kept in balance is law, grace and truth. Law in it’s very nature is religious and puts us into bondage if we don’t add grace (aka love/compassion). But grace doesn’t make sense without law. Together the law of Abraham plus the grace of Jesus Christ make up TRUTH.

If you only focus on law, you won’t get it. If you only focus on grace you won’t get the whole picture, you won’t even understand WHY you needed to receive grace. If you can see both you can receive truth.

We need a biblical balance in our every day lives. We need to combine things and keep them together in balance.

If you like this post you might like

• How to stop the emotional-spiritual collapses
• Love God, love others, love yourself – a biblically balanced life 
• Christian burn out cycle 
• The parable of the talents – use what you have got (not more)

Filed under: Healing

Getting out of depression (learned helplessness) by learning to be optimistic

I read this brilliant book: Learned Optimism.

In it the author (Dr. Martin Seligman) writes about how they experimented with a dog. They gave the dog shock treatments and gave the dog a way to end the shock by pressing a button or something. The dog didn’t become depressed because the dog had a way to control his environment.

When they stopped the button from working, the dog felt no control over his life… and he became depressed. After the dog had decided he could no longer control his what was happening to him, he became depressed.

Even when they fixed the button so that it would work again, the dog no longer even tried to change what was going on. It had given up. It had decided it could no control anything.

The dog had decided that it had no control over it’s own life… and it gave up. It stopped pressing the button. The dog had learned to be helpless. Even if the opportunity to stop the shocks was provided, it remained helpless. It had learned to be helpless and it remained helpless no matter what changed around it.

If you grew up in a family in which you were controlled, abused or constantly put down, you may have stopped trying to change the world around you. You also might have learned to be helpless.

Even if God surrounded you with 100 big red buttons that will change almost everything around you, you may not even try to press them. You may have become depressed because you have learned (perhaps from your childhood or a recent disappointment) that you are unable to change your experience of life.

But what if that dog gave it another go and pressed the button? What if he unlearned that he was powerless? What if he thought it through and gave it another chance? What if he pressed the button and made a change to his environment? What if he decided he was not helpless and stopped behaving as if he is?

Yes, if he reached out and changed something, then some pain would stop.

If you are stuck in depression, it is possible that you have somehow learned that nothing you can do will change what you are experiencing. You might not even try any more.

Divorce and learned helplessness

You may have come through a long and painful divorce. People only get a divorce when they give up. No one gives up quickly. So in a divorce you may have learned to be helpless. Here are a few scenarios how you may have learned to be helpless: maybe over a few years you could not make the other person happy – so you stopped trying. Perhaps for a few years you felt like you could not do anything right in their eyes – so you stopped trying. In this way you may have learned to be helpless.

But perhaps the marriage is over now. You need to see that you are living a different life. You have some control now. You have choices. Does it make sense to still behave in a helpless way? The dog was given a way to control his life, but because he had learned to be helpless, he couldn’t change his mind. He remained helpless and therefore remained depressed.

Perhaps you are not yet divorced, perhaps there is still time to change. You could try to express yourself, you could try new things with your partner. Try other ways of doing things that aren’t working. Helplessness results in depression – that isn’t good for a marriage. Try something else.

You CAN unlearn and change

You are not a dog. You are not an animal.

You CAN change your mind. You CAN decide to control your life and do things that will lessen the pain. You CAN change and you CAN start with just a few small things. Start with your hair. Then your clothes. Then try avoiding hurtful people. Then go to a church where you feel loved. Then go to counselling and learn new skills. Then… then… then…

Bit by bit you CAN change your experience of the world around you. YOU CAN.

Here is an online test which is created by someone else. Enjoy this learned optimism test. I will write more about this book next week. I’m off to the coast. I’m changing my world to be a WHOLE LOT more fun. What are you going to change in your world?

UPDATE: My weekend was awesome. About it: Back from a gr8 weekend

Filed under: Church, Healing , christian, Christianity, Church, Jesus Christ

Forgiveness releases us to be healed and whole

(Rewritten on 23 Jan 2008) This is a part of this pack of three posts

• Forgiveness releases us to be healed and whole
• The desire to find our missing inner self (Imago – part 2)
• How we build an Imago – Part 1

In the previous two posts I was explaining the concept of an imago. An imago is the invisible inner “image” that has been built up inside our heads/heart. It was built as we grew up. It’s the image of the partner that we are unconsciously looking for.

We know that God took a part out of the original “man” and the changed man was then called Adam. That part that is missing from Adam was built up into what God called ”woman” (Gen 2:20-22) and named Eve. Ever since then men and women have been two parts of a whole. Each part desires the other part. Together they are complete.

The image of what Adam was missing – his side, the woman - is called an imago. Its the bit you and I feel that we are missing. I have an imago image in me. You have an imago image in you. Men have imagos. Women also have their own imagos. Everyone has one. It’s in our brain and it’s built through our experience of life.

We look for someone to meet our needs

The imago is an image – and it helps us find the partner who we think will give us what we need.

Like everyone, I had a deep need for acceptance from my parents. Like many people, this need was not met… they didn’t see the best in me and so I didn’t feel accepted. This unmet need is now a part of my imago. I now (unconsciously) look for a woman to accept me – to meet that unmet need.

I don’t only have one need, I have many. So the imago of the “perfect” woman (according to my subconscious) is quite developed. When I meet a woman who matches my imago I get zing-zing feelings. It’s chemistry all round if I match her imago as well. If she is honest, nurturing and accepting I will feel chemistry. If she needs kindness, strength and faithfulness then she will feel chemistry with me. If we both match each other’s imago, then it’s going to be hard to keep us apart.

Forgiveness releases us to be healed and whole

BUT. As time went by I may have become angry and refused to forgive my parents for not accepting me. (Lots of people are angry on the inside. The bible calls this “hardness of heart”.)

If I refuse to forgive my parents, then when I find a woman who is willing to accept me, I am blocked up by unforgiveness to my parents (I refuse to forgive them) and so I am unable to receive from her. My unforgiveness blocks me from receiving from her what I desperately need.

She gets confused. We fight. There’s trouble in paradise. Imagine how confusing that is for my partner. I choose them because I need their acceptance, but I reject them because I won’t admit my need.

Come closer. Go away.

I need you. I don’t need you.

If I can forgive the people who didn’t give me what I needed, then I can receive from somone else and come to wholeness and healing eventually. But forgiveness blocks this gift of God through a partner.

I have to be real about my needs and real about whether I have forgiven the abuser. THEN I can receive the acceptance I need and I can gradually heal and become whole.

NOTE: It is not possible to become entirely whole unless we are in relationships with the people around us. But as we give love and receive love – or learn to - then we can grow, heal, evolve and heal and become whole.

We also can’t come to wholeness if we refuse to be an adult and grow up, take ownership of what happened to us and mature. What happened was not good, but ignoring it won’t heal it and won’t make it go away.

If you liked this post, you might also like:

• How to forgive someone
• Forgiveness releases us to be healed and whole
• Forgive to be forgiven

Filed under: Healing

Forgive to be forgiven

I have written a lot (1, 2) about the complete forgiveness that Jesus has extended to us, by Him dying in our place on the cross and in this way making COMPLETE ATONEMENT for those who accept His sacrifice. His work is absolute. It is complete.

The bible says that the payment is SO complete that the bible describes death and sickness and sin as ANULLED. Do you know what an anullment is? If you get married your marriage is listed in a register. If, on your honeymoon, your partner cheats on you, by law you can claim the marriage was not a real marriage and the next time you visit the register there will be absolutely NO sign of the marriage ever having been registered. That is how completely death and sin and sickness and law is anulled by the death of Jesus for those who will accept His sacrifice.

But. And this is the small print. There is one way to undo the wonderfully complete forgiveness that Jesus has extended to you. Let me show you how our hard heart undoes the wonderful work that Jesus did on the cross through His blood and His body.

Let’s look at the prayer that Jesus advised us to pray.

Pray, therefore, like this: Our Father Who is in heaven, hallowed (kept holy) be Your name.

Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread.

And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven (left, remitted, and let go of the debts, and have given up resentment against) our debtors.

And lead (bring) us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.

For if you forgive people their trespasses [their reckless and willful sins, leaving them, letting them go, and giving up resentment], your heavenly Father will also forgive you.

But if you do not forgive others their trespasses [their reckless and willful sins, leaving them, letting them go, and giving up resentment], neither will your Father forgive you your trespasses. – Matt 6:9-15

So there you have it. It says in 3 verses (highighted in red) that we are not forgiven if we don’t forgive others. Ouch.

He made a full payment on the cross. It’s as if He deposited a billion-gazillion dollars (everything we could ever need) and He put it into our bank account in our name. Millions of people never go claim the payment that was made – and that is the saddest aspect of this world, that we don’t come to Jesus and accept His full payment and receive the full release that He made for us.

But some people come to Him, accept His payment – and still don’t receive it. These verses show us why. 3 times it is spelled out. Verses 12, 14 and 15 all make it clear. If you want to be forgiven, you have to forgive.

Believe me when I say I know how hard it is to forgive. But. If you will soften your heart and let the past be in the past, you can receive your own release.

If you liked this post, you might also like:

• How to forgive someone
• Forgiveness releases us to be healed and whole
• Forgive to be forgiven

Filed under: Healing

Creating deep intimacy (into-me-see) in relationships

• Marriage Pt 3 – God’s vision for marriage
• Marriage Pt 2 – safe with each other
• Marriage Pt 1 – God is so good
• (OLD POST) Men, women, love and attraction
• (OLD POST) Creating deep intimacy (into-me-see) in relationships

What does the dictionary say about intimacy?

Intimacy\In”ti*ma*cy\, n.; pl. Intimacies. [From Intimate.]
   The state of being intimate; close familiarity or
   association; nearness in friendship.

God desires intimacy, you desire intimacy, people around you desire intimacy. But it can be really hard to find, get and keep. In this post I’ll try to explain what it is and why it’s hard to find.

Here are some bottom lines:

• it takes courage to open ourselves to each other, but without openness we can’t have intimacy
• without someone to tell our inner stuff to, we will suffer mentally and emotionally
• not all talking is the same… shallow chit chat doesn’t take away emptiness, it is deeper talking that stops us from feeling isolated and gives us a sense of being connected and accepted and warm

By the way… the same goes for our relationship with God. Unless you will speak out and vent the yucky stuff you feel, you can’t have a relationship with (not just knowledge of) Him. If you’re afraid of His wrathful rejection you might keep your real feelings hidden and you stick to safe prayers. If you won’t talk openly with Him, you will notbe able to enter into deeper intimacy with Him as a Person. Tell Him how you feel. Tell Him what you feel. Ask for what you need.

Here is how intimacy works in my opinion. Please note: this is a combination of my own experience and observations, combined with the two most influential books I have ever read on marriage:

• 7 levels of intimacy - I cannot recommend that book strongly enough. It’s like reading the bible in laymans terms, it contains THAT MUCH wisdom, reaching far beyond just intimacy.
• Getting the love you want – This book impacted me so much that I felt like I could suddenly see how and why… and especially I could see how not to and why not to. This resulted in a lot of freedom for me and a renewed hope for a future relationship.
• I should probably add love languages to this list of excellent relationship books, but it doesn’t relate to this post 

And so… without further ado… this is my view of intimacy, how it grows and the tremendous good it can bring to the emotional and mental health (and happiness) for any friendship that pursues this.

The 7 levels of intimacy (“into-me-see”) are…

1. Cliche

This is when two people meet. It’s the normal ritual greeting your culture uses every “hey, hi, whats up, nothing”. That kind of stuff. If that goes well, people will go on to the next step.

2. Facts

If the ritual of greeting went well people will share some facts “nice day, yeah, I was so busy this week, yeah me too, I bought a new car, I am thinking of getting a boat”. In this level people are sharing safe facts, to see if the other person wants to engage, to see if they are a suitable person to connect with, to find out a bit about their lives. If this exchange of basic information goes well, if they feel comfortable with the other person, they go a bit deeper. Not too much too fast, just a step at a time, watching to see how it goes.

3. Opinions

So you have shared basic information about yourself and the other person received it without judging you. Now it’s time to let them see a bit more of you. More than the facts of your life, you show some opinions. Opinions are not how you feel, they are less deep than feelings, but they are deeper than facts. “I don’t like rude people, yeah me neither, I love summer, me too, you are a really nice person, thanks, you’re pretty, thanks!”.

If the other person listens to your opinions without judgement, you might offer more opinions and stronger opinions. If the other person refuses to share their opinions, you might stop sharing yours. This happened to me recently, I shared my strongly held opinion on something and the other person was cagey and refused to share theirs. I avoided them for a week or more, as I felt like I had put myself out there and that person didn’t reciprocate. I took time to think about the relationship and if it was working for me, or not. I had to decide what I wanted, what I preferred and what I could live with in the friendship.

It’s an equal thing. It goes both ways. If both people shared their opinions and it went well, you’ll consider going to the next level… a bit deeper, a bit closer to the inner you.

4. Hopes and dreams

Saying what you think right now (opinions) is deeper than general facts. Now sharing what you hope to achieve in your life, what you dream about, what gets you moving… this is deeper that just what you think in the moment.

What you hope to do with your life is more you than an opinion. Your hopes and dreams are built up by your thoughts and opinions over many years. It’s a deeper part of you. It’s more of youand you will only share this if the other person accepted your opinions without finding fault and judging your opinions negatively. So if you felt safe and accepted, you’ll consider sharing your ambitions and pie-in-the-sky hopes and dreams.

This is a greater level of vulnerability, you’re putting yourself out there more. You’re saying this is me and waiting to see if the other person laughs and says you’re nuts. But you’re hoping the don’t, you’re hoping they see the deeper you and accept you, support you.

In my life, since I was a teenager or earlier, I dreamed about preaching the gospel worldwide in real power and authority. Bringing release to people. Solving problems. Teaching truth. That’s my long term goal. Short term, I toy with the idea of being Dr Phil. If I tell you this and you laugh, it’s over between us in terms of any further deepening of intimacy. But if I tell you this and you are supportive of me (you say that you can see that potential in me) then I will let you go deeper into who I really am. But you have to support me, believe that with hard work and dedication I can rise to that level and be that person… in other words, tell me that you see the best in me and you want the best for me.

If I share this and if you also choose to respond and share your own hopes and dreams for your life – small or big – then I get a chance to accept and support you.. Now we are at a deeper level of intimacy. We know more about how the other person ticks on the the inside. Now we can share a deeper life and go to the next level.

5. Feelings

This might seem like the deepest level, but it’s only number 5 of 7. If you listened to my dream of being Dr Phil and helping people get free of darkness and sadness so that they can live an abundant life.. if you heard that and I if genuinely feel supported by you… then I will let you see my feelings. If you accept my dream, I will let you see the passion behind the dream. I’ll show you how I feel. My dreams are driven by my feelings.

The things I feel drive my dreams. If I always feel like running away, my dream might be to buy a boat and sail it in the open seas for the rest of my life. If I felt hurt as a child and then  I realised that other people also feel that way, my dream might be to rise up and help others (which in my case it is).

The feelings you have over the long term result in your dreams. Your dreams are a product of how you feel. If you can accept the dream of the person you are talking to (and share your own), then they might let you learn about the feelings that resulted in that dream.

It’s another deeper layer into who they are and how they came to be this person. If you can connect with and support then and show acceptance on this level, you may be allowed to see into them deeper still.

6. Traumas

Our feelings are shaped by what has happened to us in our lives. Events.

If someone said “you’re a bad person” that can have an enormous effect on our self esteem. Parents are the ones who give us much of our identity. If the parent told us we are bad, then the impact could be life changing. If someone abused us, that shapes and decreases our self worth. 

The stuff on level 6 is the stuff we keep hidden, because we fear rejection at this level. But if someone will listen and accept us at this level, it can change our lives. If we can listen to someone who is sharing at this level, we can change their lives by accepting what happened to them and still seeing the wonderfulness of who they are.

Sharing the deep traumas in our lives doesn’t happen soon – and it shouldn’t! Some people only share this stuff after they are married, because they feel safe, they feel the other person can’t leave and will now accept them.

The other levels are there to ensure that only a loving and accepting and trustworthy person gets to see this very deep and emotionally raw layer of us. Risky and dangerous people are like bulls in a china shop and must be kept out, otherwise they may damage the shop even further.

You might ask “why should I ever go there again?” or “why share this with anyone?” If you choose to let someone safe listen to your story, about what happened to you, their acceptance can create much greater intimacy between you two. It will be healing for you – as long as the person is safe… and if they went through the previous levels of accepting you and they shared their own inner selves, then they might be a good and safe person to share with.

Perhaps the person’s traumatic experience told them that they are somehow dirty, (I felt that way after abuse as a teenager) but now you (the person listening) have a chance to listen to the story and remind them that they are good, clean and wonderful in your eyes. You could listen and accept and remind them that they are forgiven and washed clean by Jesus. Remind them that in God’s eyes, He had forgotten all of our sin and the sins done to us. According to the bible, because of Jesus taking our sin away, we are holy, pure and blameless. Help the person see that you can see the good in them… they really are: wonderful, gifted in some way, full of potential.

Remember, this is a two way thing. Don’t try save someone who doesn’t want to be saved. Don’t rescue a person who doesn’t want to be rescued. Be careful sharing your stuff with someone who won’t share back. Be careful to share with people who have shown themselves trustworthy by accepting you at the previous levels.

On level 6 listening and accepting and seeing the best in the person is how you heal them… and that is what they should be doing for you too. A relationship is a two way street.

On level 7 there is even more good news.

7. Needs

If I show you what happened to me, the traumas that have happened in my life, and if you listen and accept and support me in them… then you may begin to understand why I think and behave as I do.

If you can accept my traumas, then you are also in a good place to help me heal from those traumas. If you show me your trauma, I can help you heal. This is how the healing can happen…

Let’s take an example… a female survivor of abandonment might react really badly when her partner stares at another woman. The abandonment - rejection/betrayal – is the trauma of level 6. If she forms enough trust to share this with her current partner, he can accept what happened to her and love her.

Because of the trauma she has learned a deeply ingrained lesson in life, maybe it’s something like “every man is bad and will eventually leave me” and because of this belief, she might even do things that drive a good man away. This is a self-fulfilling prophecy. She believes bad things will happen, she behaves as if it will, she is waiting for it to happen… eventually with words, comments, behaviour, poor choices, she has now punctured the boat with that they both sail in with so many stabs and wounds that the ship does sink. The relationship ends – and she walks away saying “You see! I knew it. All men do this”.

But the old lesson she learned back then has just repeated itself in a good relationship with a good man. If the man and woman can go to level 6 and she can share how she feels panicked when he looks around the room, then they can go to level 7 where he and she agree to work together to do things differently.

So if he is looking around the room and she feels panic is starting to rise up, she (by earlier agreement) touches his hand and he recognises that his innocent behaviour is triggering her trauma, which triggers her feelings. He can choose to look directly at her and tell her how in love he is with her, how she is perfect for him, how pleased he is with her. Every time that old tape recorder of rejection begins to start up in her head, she can ask him to re-program it with the truth of their relationship.

Over time she will no longer hear those old damaging truths and she can believe the truth about the man she is with. And she can get to know the things he struggles with and she can speak into his life to help him see the new truth and potential of his life.

You see, everyone has damage, everyone has trauma… and this is how people who make the effort to get to this level of intimacy can heal one another. This is one of the reasons that God gave us marriage, to help one another. But this effect is not only for marriage. It can happen between any two people who choose to care. It can happen when brothers talk, when sisters talk, when best friends talk. It happens when people go to counsellors and when we join support groups.

If we do not have someone in our life to share with, we will gradually suffer more and more, emotionally, mentally and we will feel isolated and eventually we may suffer from paranoia and break down. I believe that this is why Jesus put so much weight and rewards on His one command: to love.

Accepting the other person’s story and helping them to see their strengths and their goodness and their strong points and values is the very best thing you can do for children, friends and loved ones. See the best in people and tell them. Listening, accepting and then helping the person release that old story and find a new story and new truths about themselves.

But please remember, an intimate relationship is a two way thing. It’s not you doing for them. It’s not them doing for you. It’s a relationship. You can read more about what the bible encourages us to do for one another: One anothering

This post was inspired by these two books

I also recommend this book

Filed under: Healing, Prophecy , christian, Christianity, Jesus Christ, Prophecy

God can restore and heal you (AKA “the 3 lovings”)

When i was a young boy I knew God very intimately. I constantly felt good and my nickname was smiley. I bounced through life playing.

But at about 11 all boys become emotionally aware of the world around them. I did. I remember the agony I felt when I saw people in pain. I personally felt no such pain. I may have already been through some things, but I didn’t feel troubled. I had my best friend God to talk to and I felt wonderful inside myself.

But this awareness of the pain of people around me troubled me incredibly. I asked for many creative things to help people, but nothing I tried seemed to provide a solution. I felt terribly guilty at having such joy in my life while others didn’t have that. Once I asked that He would take some of my joy and give it to them and let me carry some of their pain. (I was very naive and very childlike in my thinking.)

Eventually I asked to be used by Him to help people. I asked many times and He accepted. I didn’t know what I was in for. He made me several promises… and then gradually withdrew from my life. BUT He never forsook (forsaked) me.

I went from feeling full of Gods love, to experiencing so much emptiness that I wanted to die. I tried to find warmth and love anywhere – and that included looking desperately in all the wrong places. I searched desperately for the warmth and connection I had once known with Him. I had a chronic hunger. I searched high and low until I found what *I* was looking for. What we are all looking for.

I now have a growing amount of warmth and connection again. I am beginning to prosper in every way, in every part of my life. How? It is only by living life *His* way – and that is by respecting myself, loving others and loving Him. I call that “the 3 lovings”. Love combined with a hope and combined with real faith in Jesus Christ, is what changed my life completely.

I think there can be 3 sources of warmth in our lives: God, other people around us and from ourselves. Each of these connections can give us warmth in our lives. To have all three is to really prosper.

I now have this growing warmth inside me, a connection and I feel warm inside again. I feel more and more fulfilled in my life.

I have been to 22 countries and talked to anyone and everyone of most religions and none of them can restore a life so fast, none of them give manifest freedom from EVERY type of evil in this world, by practical experience I can say with confidence that none of them can provide such inner warmth and connection as the God in Heaven who came to earth to walk amongst us and then went back to Heaven, but yet actually lives in those who believe wholeheartedly in Him.

When I say to people that God can restore them, no matter what they have been through, no matter how empty they feel, no matter what they have done… I am speaking from experience.

In all my time talking to people who believe other things, I consistently found wonderful people who wanted good things for the world and good things for the people around them. Please do not misunderstand me. I found good people in the USA, Nepal and Thailand and wherever else and in all religions.

But in my personal experience… Jesus is the way, He is the truth, He is the Life. All who (deeply and sincerely and with commitment) come to Him will be saved. This promise is not only for the next life, but in fact speaks of release from the consequences of sin in this life, here and now.

This is not guesswork, it is not fantasy or blind hope. I know this to be true from my own experience.

Filed under: Healing

Another way to grow: watch Dr Phil

Previously I wrote How to: Increase the joy in your life and I wrote that we have to face the hurt/anger/whatever that blocked us up.

Sometimes the anger or hurt is not an event, sometimes it’s just long term niggles, long term harassment, long term water torture. Perhaps a parent put you down for years. Perhaps your parents got divorced and you couldn’t deal with the daily pain.

Not everything is an event. Not all abuse is easy to notice. Physical abuse is easy to spot. But mental or emotional abuse can unnoticed for years and years until the abused person melts down.

Wouldn’t it be good if you find the issues, face them and overcome them – from the comfort of your lounge? What if you could watch a tv show and see other people’s issues, listening to yourself to see if those issues are yours – and then facing them, one by one.

Yes I’m encouraging you to watch Dr Phil.

When I watch this show I find my emotions can be so whipped up that I have to hit pause and go make some tea. Time out. At this point I know that I am watching something that I have been through or have been exposed to in a harmful way.

I know that Dr Phil will give good advice on how NOT to go through that problem again. He will also help me see whether I have hurt someone, or if I was a victim. It can be very hard to see which role I played, was I a victim? Who did the wrong thing? Was NO ONE wrong?

Sometimes I learn from Dr Phil that no one is particularly wrong, it’s just that the two people should learn to communicate more effectively. Sometimes I see a person talking to the other one and I feel radically uncomfortable… and then Dr Phil says that behavior is bulling… and I get that “oh!” moment.

Bit by bit my EQ grows (EQ = emotional understanding, like an IQ) . As I grow, I can understand more, I’m more able to see what happened AND MOVE PAST IT.

You can watch Dr Phil as a passive spectator, or you can use it to grow and heal. It’s your choice. Passive watching won’t help. Actively listening to how you feel as you watch the show means you will spot the times when you get upset at what you’re seeing. Those are the times to accept, forgive and move on.

So your internal self talk could go like this…

Oh yes, I can see that this happened to me. Yeah I remember going through this. That really hurt. Ok, Dr Phil is giving me ways to move past this. Ok, I will do them. I forgive that person. I am confident that I will not need to go through this again, because I am aware of it and I know how to avoid it now.

Remember: Emotional and mental abuse is harder to spot and overcome than physical abuse. But it can shut people down because they get confused and stop feeling their emotions.

Remember: We need to feel our sadness in order to feel our happiness (have a read of How to: Increase the joy in your life) so watching Dr Phil shows can reconnect you to past experiences and you can accept what happened and forgive and move on… and this means you will feel again and joy can invade your life again.

God bless you!

Raise your EQ… read some good Dr Phil relationship articles

• Building Your Personal Profile *** read this one!
• Personal Relationship Values *** and this one!
• Are You Ready For a Successful Relationship?
• Contaminating a Relationship
• Affair-Proof Your Marriage
• Moving Forward After Infidelity

Filed under: Healing

How to: Increase the joy in your life

I used to think that life came without a learners manual. Then I found the bible. hehehe.

The bible says this…

the Truth will set you free – John 8:32

Now let me be the first to say that this “Truth” is Jesus Christ. BUT. This is also a good saying in terms of general truth setting us free. Let me explain.

I have a picture of myself immediately before an event in 1998. I have a picture of myself a few days later. The difference in me is astonishing.

A few days before I was in love, happy, glowing, energized, living life and happy to be alive. A few days later I was disconnected, lost, aimless, in shock.

Before that moment in my life, I loved to be in the mountains and I enjoyed having drinks on pebbly beaches, I enjoyed dancing. After that moment, no matter where I was in this gorgeous world (trekking near Everest, on the back of an elephant in Nepal, tramping up to glaciers on the south island of New Zealand)… it didn’t matter… I just couldn’t connect to the joy that was available to me.

Why?

Why couldn’t I connect to the immense joy that was available to me in my life? Because I was suppressing my anger and pain from the event that shut me down.

Why does suppressing pain shut down anger? Because if you shut off an emotion, you are actually shutting off access to that emotion… and therefore to ALL emotions.
So… to shut off access to pain is to shut off access to joy. To shut off anger is to shut off happiness. You’re not cutting off1 single emotion, you’re cutting off access to your emotions.

Joy

There is SO MUCH joy available to us. Our kids. Our friends. Our sports. Our cars. The plants outside. The sky. Colors. Family. Simply being alive!

If you can’t feel that joy, the problem is you are not letting yourself feel something.

So one way of increasing the amount of joy that you can feel in your life is to look back to the moment(s) when you decided not to feel anger, or hatred, or pain, or anguish or whatever… and for your own sake, for your own happiness…

• talk to someone about how you felt back then
• talk to someone about what you felt
• talk to someone about the thoughts you had
• talk to someone about the feelings you had
• talk to someone about the awful choices you faced

If you will unblock those negative feelings, you will find your positive emotions will come back into your life.

A few more thoughts

• Talking is more than just forgiveness, it’s actually talking it out
• Joy is connected to peace, contentedness, calmness and more

Remember…

the Truth will set you free – John 8:32

Filed under: Healing

Recovering from sexual abuse

I have been thinking about how many of the people who visit here have been through sexual abuse.

We all seem to miss the vital issues that are involved. So I will try and put my key thoughts down in writing, in the hope that people will see and understand.

In many ways I am writing this post to myself, as well as to many of you. This might be the first time that someone explains what happened to you and shows you how to forgive yourself, how to let go and how to heal on the inside.

Teens

If something happened to you as a child or a teenager the key to getting free is to understand, it was not your fault. Teenagers are by nature young. Being young means that they don’t have all the working emotions and the experience to identify dangers.

Adults who want to abuse therefore look for a particular kind of teen. A teen that is at risk.

What does it mean to be at risk? Often it is the trusting, innocent and kind kids that get hurt. The reason for this is that an abuser doesn’t expect the child to fight back, the abuser expects to be able to talk that person into doing things. That child is at risk. The abuser is like a hunter. The child is the prey.

You might believe that it was your fault and that you entered into it and tolerated it. I’m not agreeing with you, I’m just pointing out the fact that you were a teen and you’re not yet an adult. You were not yet capable of understanding the world entirely. As a teen we understand a lot, but we’re not adults, so obviously we’re not fully developed yet emotionally.

Adults have the responsibility to take care and protect teens. If you’re reading this and you’ve been abused as a teen, someone somewhere failed to protect you.

I wrote about the cycle of hurt and healing in this post What to do when you’re feeling empty inside. But right now I want to explain what happens inside the head of a person who has been abused.

My story

When I was abused, the man first became my friend. He gave me ice creams. He swapped stamps with me – and he gave me heaps of the best ones. I didn’t see the trend at all. He was the hunter. I was the hunted. He was the young adult and I was the teen. I was innocently entering into the relationship out of trust and he was using my trust to make a connection with me.

Even when the abuse actually occurred, I didn’t see how it had been constructed by him. I didn’t see how I had been lured like a fish to a hook.

Afterwards I felt bad. I couldn’t blame him (I thought) because it seemed like I had gotten involved of my free will. But that was not the case at all. Remember what I said… teenagers are a gift from God for adults to PROTECT.

If this happened to you, no matter how much you think that you were involved of your free will, you have been tricked. Like a fish on a hook, the adult did not protect you and used you for their evil needs.

I remember feeling pity for this man. My thoughts slowly became more and more confused as the experiences continued. I could see him intense sadness if I didn’t want to participate. What was happening was that he (the adult) was using my innocence and kindness against me.

I don’t want to indicate that it’s only men who do these things. It isn’t. I can tell you stories about my first “girlfriend” who got her way. I can tell you about more than one adult woman. There are abusers in both sexes, let’s not be naiive. A victim attracts abusers and it’s not a gender thing.

A few years ago, when I eventually told a parent about the abuse, that person said they were always on the lookout to protect my sister because she is a girl. That person never expected the son to be in danger.

The truth to accept is…

• If you have been in this situation it might be very confusing for you to see that as a teen you should not have been put in this situation.
• As a teen you didn’t have the ability to understand what was happening.
• Because you were a teen, it is not your fault. Adults are tasked by God to protect you.

The long term effect

The teen believes that they are somehow bad inside. I did. These experiences went totally against how I felt as a Christian. I couldn’t see why I was letting this happen. I became very confused. As a Christian I began to believe that God was permitting it, I began to believe that I was a bad person. I was in a “spiral down” emotionally.

Had an adult come and spoken to me about this, had they protected me and explained that I had been manipulated against my will… I could have seen the danger I was in and I would have broken away.

Instead that did not happen. Instead I felt worse and worse inside of myself… and I needed the man’s attention more and more. I had isolated myself from friends because I felt dirty. I would avoid him for months, but he would show up at church, or outside my home, or drive slowly past me on his moped, smiling, inviting.

For months I would be in a downward spiral emotionally, slowly self destructing inside, believing I was a bad person… he would visit occasionally until I’d give in and go with him again.

It looked (to me) like it was my choice to go with him, but I was a young teen and he was the adult. He was using his superior emotional ability to stalk me. Like a lion hunts it’s prey (see the pic to the left).

It was only when I took a very firm stand and became angry with him and threatened to tell other adults, that he stopped being around me.

I was so confused about everything in my life.

What I needed was healing. I needed loving adults. I needed a loving home. But I had isolated myself. And during this time I had become a victim to other adults as well. The behavior of a victim draws many predators to itself.

The way out, into the upward spiral

1. The teen (or the recovering adult) must find someone to talk to about these experiences. Do not remain isolated. Do not isolate yourself. Isolation makes us sad inside. Pray and ask God for friends and people to love you in a healthy way.
2. The teen (or the recovering adult) must see the truth is that they were abused and the abuser is at fault Pray and ask God for wisdom.
3. The teen (or the recovering adult) must understand that blaming ourselves and believing we are weak and bad inside is only going to keep us in a downward spiral. We need to lay blame where it should be… at the feet of the abuser. Pray and ask God for wisdom.
4. The teen (or the recovering adult) must discover their “personal power“. You have rights. You have a right to a good life. You are a good person. You can say no. You can be angry. You can choose for yourself. You can get away from bad people. You can learn about right and wrong. You can learn about good and bad, until you recognize it. Pray and ask God for wisdom.
5. The teen (or the recovering adult) must find a loving church and get into loving home groups (cells). Jesus walked this earth 2000 years ago. He went back to heaven. Now He lives through His people. Find people that love like He did. Find a church that loves like He did. In the toughest city you can still find those people, don’t give up, they are there. Pray and ask God for them.
6. No matter what you think your sin is, always remember and understand this truth: as a Christian your sins are COMPLETELY forgiven. This brings spiritual freedom to your life and a sure knowledge that God is NOT judging you and He doesn’t even see your sin. With this spiritual freedom and healing, you can now focus on emotional healing and freedom… which is what this post is all about.

The way out is for you to take ownership of your life. Find a healthy Christianity. Stop shame from ruling your life. Choose not to feel bad about yourself. Leave the spiral down. Choose to enter into the spiral up.

This is a book that has made an enormous difference in my life: Changes that heal.

It has taken me more than a year to work through about half of it… it’s just that densely packed with bible based Christian wisdom.

(This book is written by Henry Cloud. You might know his “Boundaries” books?)

Christian beliefs to AVOID

He has also written another book called 12 “Christian” Beliefs That Can Drive You Crazy. Here are the twelve thoughts to avoid (thanks to Natala).

1. It’s selfish to have my needs met.
2. If I’m spiritual enough, I will have no pain or sinfulness.
3. If I change my behavior, I will grow spiritually
4. I just need to give it to the Lord.
5. One day, I’ll be finished with recovery.
6. Leave the past behind.
7. If I have God, I don’t need people
8. ‘Shoulds’ are good.
9. Guilt and shame are good for me .
10. If I make right choices, I will grow spiritually.
11. Just doing the right thing is more important than why I do it.
12. If I know the truth, I will grow.

I have been through a lot in my life. In this post I have outlined much of what I have learned. I am still growing, still healing, still recovering. I have spent many decades in a down spiral and now I’m getting into the upward internal spiral, with the help of God.

For me my beliefs that I have to overcome is this one “One day, I’ll be finished with recovery.” I keep expecting that I can simply relax and “let God” when in fact there is no such fantasy thing.

When I was going through the time I have written about in this post, I believed “If I have God, I don’t need people” and I was so so wrong. People must not be isolated and must not allow themselves to become isolated.

I also struggled with “It’s selfish to have my needs met.” and this is because I felt feelings of low self worth. I didn’t know how HIGHLY God thinks of me. So highly that He lived and died for me. He loves me, no matter what.

Another nonsense is that we can simply “Leave the past behind.” No. To do this is to bury it. And we’re burying it alive. It just sits there under the ground, mumbling, groaning and festering. Eventually it bursts out into our lives like the people in the cemetary in Michael Jackson’s “thriller” video.

So my message to you is this: take ownership of your life. God gave adam and eve some specific instructions. To LIVE their life and to GROW. That is His command to you also, to love yourself, love those around you and to love Him.

For churches and healers

On the other hand, for those of you wanting to help hurt people heal. Your task is to help these people learn about themselves. To create a safe environment. To show healthy self-love by your own choices in your life.

Think about this truth: if the person didn’t learn to love and respect and protect themselves already… then who can they learn from, but from the people around them! And you are one of those people.

For church builders, when designing a church, don’t be concerned about building a big church. Design for community. Design for love. Design for interaction. Don’t worry about bringing in massive numbers of unhealed people, so they can tithe. Focus on healing small numbers of people. Lead them not with words from the front, but like Jesus, get in amongst the people and lead by example.

Focus on showing how to love. Healing people doesn’t just happen in worship or through words said from the front… it happens in community and in groups and by teaching one another to love.

Filed under: Healing

Getting to like my new self (Myers Briggs)

One of the most remarkable things about recovery is the internal change that happens. The changes have been so subtle and remarkable the at some times I hardly recognize myself. I know I am me… but who is me? hehehe. I’m finding out I like things A LOT that I didn’t know I liked. I’m finding out that I really DON’T like things… and I am also finding out that I’m capable of anger and even hatred. I had NO IDEA!

So I did an online Myers Briggs test. Just answering the questions stretched me to think about me. All of my life I have corresponded to an INFP in terms of my inner world and goals. I was driven and driven and driven.

Their primary goal is … how can they best serve humanity in their lives? They rely heavily on their intuitions to guide them, and use their discoveries to constantly search for value in life. They are on a continuous mission to find the truth and meaning underlying things. Every encounter and every piece of knowledge gained gets sifted through the INFP’s value system, and is evaluated to see if it has any potential to help the INFP define or refine their own path in life. The goal at the end of the path is always the same – the INFP is driven to help people and make the world a better place.

But the remarkable thing that is happening these days is I know that God is in charge and I can only love about 12 people (as Jesus did) and loving people is His command and He also wants me to enjoy my life… so I feel much more at ease in being myself and not so driven these days.

So now I feel like I correspond to an ESFP much more…

ESFPs have very strong inter-personal skills, and may find themselves in the role of the peacemaker frequently. Since they make decisions by using their personal values, they are usually very sympathetic and concerned for other people’s well-being. They’re usually quite generous and warm. They are very observant about other people, and seem to sense what is wrong with someone before others might, responding warmly with a solution to a practical need. They might not be the best advice-givers in the world, because they dislike theory and future-planning, but they are great for giving practical care. SFP is definitely a spontaneous, optimistic individual. They love to have fun.

Many of the descriptions of the various types are not me entirely, but that website has descriptions that come really really close. And it makes so much sense out of my behavior these days.

And do you know what? I like the new me! More relaxed. More loving. More staying the course with people. More out there. Less intense. Less driven. Less worried about the state of the world, because God is the potter.

Last week I was asking God for stuff and in particular I wanted Him to change me, make me different in some ways. And I think I heard “Be who I made you to be”. It’s a bit obvious, but for me very profound. I mean… imagine if I did simply accept who God has made me to be and learn to excel at my built-in desires and talents. What a wonderful life!

I am well suited to people and groups… so why not invest into that? I like being the center of a party… so go with it! I have heaps of compassion for people and I’m well suited to telling stories. Yeah. That sounds like me.

So how can I improve my happiness in my life? Well, I like to have HEAPS of fun… so I should recognize this about myself and go with it. Plan for it. I need a LOT of connection with people… so I should be aware of this and plan for it. If I can meet those needs better, I’ll be very well off inside myself.

Filed under: Healing

Overcoming and getting free from anger

I recently made a profound discovery about how to overcome anger. I’ve written about how anger built up in me over the years and eventually turned to a hidden “hook” that caused heaps of difficulty in my personal life. I’ve prayed about it quite a bit and recently I’ve begun to notice how many people are either walking in freedom or have this seething anger inside them. I think heaps of us don’t even know it’s there!

I did a short bible study on anger and the only thing I found out was that God feels it too sometimes. hehehe. He seemed to get angry when people continued to block His righteous plans for the people He cared for. Except that He is far slower to anger than me. I take a few years to really build up a head of steam, He takes a few hundred years.

So I was watching this Christian program. They were talking about anger. Immediately my eyes felt like closing and I felt tired like I wanted to leave the room and go sleep. But praise God I saw this reaction and realized what was happening. So I listened more closely. What they were saying was touching me on the inside.

As I listened the guy said something profound. He said that anger is created inside when we feel our goals are being blocked.

I hit pause on the TV show. I suddenly knew why I had become angry in my marriage! I could see why I had become angry as a teenager. I can see why I still have anger even though those years are long past.

And I knew what the solution is! It all just clicked for me.

I realized… my goals and dreams and hopes were blocked by someone else… but I can still have those dreams, I can still achieve those goals. I just have to find another different way of doing them.

No one else is in charge of my ability to find another way. The other way may include learning new adult skills, going to counseling, or simply making a decision to try again.

Even as I type this I feel a freedom washing around inside of me. I don’t feel blocked, I don’t feel angry. I feel hope and excitement as I reconnect to my goals and dreams.

All I have to do is recognize where I got blocked and move around the block. Find a new way. The old way didn’t work, just find a new way.

With the guy on tv stuck in mid-sentence and looking silly with his mouth open and hands in the air… I knew what I needed to do. I rushed to find a pen and paper and began to list the goals I had, the dreams I had.

As I scribbled I went back in time (emotionally in my memories).I listed the things I had hoped for in my marriage… how they got blocked… how I can still have them

• I listed the reasons why I chose to be married… how they got blocked… how I can still have them
• I listed the dreams I had as a teen (before abuse)… how they got blocked (a no-brainer)… and that I can still have them (all is not lost)

For example, I wanted to have a partner in life who will love and let me give all I have to her. That was blocked. I got angry deep down inside. A righteous desire was blocked. I gave and gave (as she did too I imagine) and it was blocked. I got angrier.

BUT I see now that I can still have this dream. I can still love and be loved. I can still have intimacy and trust. And as I say that, I feel the anger towards my past simply go away.

The block is what creates the anger. The way around the block is what removes the anger.

I can make a way for all my dreams to still happen. All those things I grew up with as a young boy – to do things for God, to remain pure, to be strong for the helpless, to achieve, to climb Mount Everest… these things were blocked… and I got angry. I tried to unblock and turn the other cheek and be positive… but I got blocked again. I got angrier inside.

But I can still have those dreams. I may have to work at it, learn new skills, adjust my approach… but I am not blocked… I can have them.

And as I was going through my list, re-building my list of dreams and goals, remembering what I wanted as far back as a teenage boy, I then remembered that it is the enemy who comes to steal and destroy. Jesus comes to give us life and life abundantly. God wants us to LIVE.

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. – John 10:10

So take some time to go back and see where your righteous plans and righteous dreams and righteous goals were blocked. And then make new plans to achieve your goals.

Another verse comes to mind

The horse is prepared for the day of battle, but deliverance and victory are of the Lord. – Prov 21:31

You are the one who prepares your horse (your life) for battle and He gives the victory. Make your list of goals/dreams and prepare new ways of still having those dreams – and watch the feeling of blocked anger just simply leave.

UPDATE: I absolutely cannot believe how well this has worked. I am sure God has had a hand in this. I feel free. My head feels clear. I feel at peace. Any time I lose this, I can easily track down what is triggering my anxiety and find the source of the blocked feeling… and find a new way to do it.

Filed under: Healing

From emotional disaster to being an overcomer

This post has been forming and forming. God is doing wonders in my head and heart. Connecting thoughts, restoring emotions, healing memories. Thank You Lord!

As I grew up I repressed my feelings for various reasons. As you will see in this post, repressing your feelings has a very serious impact on how we live our lives.

Different kinds of emotional pain – but it all hurts and harms

Some of the reasons for me not feeling my emotions were abuse and I’ve written a few posts about that and how I recovered from it. This post is more about the other reasons that I repressed my feelings and the impact that had.

I lived in a home where there was intense conflict. Not the physical violence type, but other kinds. Anger. Rejection. Conditional love. My sister was always threatening to run away. Everyone seemed to be in pain.

My mom was as loving and kind as she could muster and she eventually had a stroke. I can only wonder how much the stress had to do with that.

My dad was a good man. As good as he knew how. Both he and my mom had their issues coming from their parents and coming from inside them. So, my dad dealt with the stress the best he knew how. He worked. A lot. And he spent money on the family, perhaps that was to compensate. Who knows.

My point is this: some kinds of abuse are not obvious. But they cut just as deep. And they can be harder to recover from, because they are hard to explain. If someone breaks down and says in sobbing tears that they were sexually abused, people immediately have compassion. But if you break down and say you can’t really put a finger on exactly how you lost your connection to yourself… people might find it harder to be compassionate.

So if sexual or physical abuse is the hard form, then emotional abuse (including rejection, abandonment, lack of affection, other kinds of lack) are harder to see in ourselves… but they are NO LESS a problem and ALSO need to be recovered from.

One way or the other, we need to become fully functioning adults. That means having wisdom, feeling our feelings, having the full range of emotions available to love the children and adults in our lives.

If we refuse to feel our anger, we will also lose the feeling of love. Suppressing your feelings means all your feelings are suppressed. Suppressing one, suppresses all.

One of the things that people learn in counseling is that in co-dependant families everyone takes a “role”. I recommend you read this article Family Roles In Addiction & Codependency. I was the “lost child”

Addiction and the Family Role 4, The Lost Child

The Lost Child is the silent, “out of the way” family member, and will never mention alcohol or recovery. They are quiet and reserved, careful to not make problems. The Lost Child gives up self needs and makes efforts to avoid any conversation regarding the underlying roles.

The underlying feelings are guilt, loneliness, neglect, and anger.

It is shocking to me how well this role describes the way I dealt with my childhood. I would sit down the side of the house and be sad. When I was tired of being sad, I simply decided to stop being sad. I cut that off. Chop. Snip. Slowly I felt less and less. Inside me I built up some unwritten rules…

• It’s not OK for me to feel
• It’s not OK for me to have problems
• It’s not OK for me to have fun
• I’m not lovable
• I’m not good enough
• If people act bad or crazy, I’m responsible

Some of those are more true than others. “It’s not OK for me to have problems”.

The spiral DOWN

This was SO TRUE for me (or so I thought) and as a result, when I experienced sexual abuse as a teenager, I didn’t tell anyone. I knew that the family had enough trouble already and I didn’t want to add to that.

Besides that, I could handle it (I thought). I knew they could never handle it, they would lose the plot and family life would be even worse (I thought). And it would be my fault… again! (I thought) I decided I was strong enough to handle it. Snip. Chop. There go some more feelings and I was left even less in touch with my body and my emotions.

And any teenager or child who can’t feel their emotions loses a significant way of “hearing” when danger is near. Even worse, with no access to my loneliness I no longer felt a pressing need to FIND LOVE and so I isolated myself even more.

But not hearing anger doesn’t mean I didn’t have any. I did. Not feeling lonely doesn’t mean I wasn’t. I was. And the anger was secretly growing. The loneliness was growing too. But I refused to be angry (my parents absolutely never fought) and I didn’t feel like I had any choices. Eventually I buttoned it all down and decided to weather the storm of my life. I decided that I had to survive and get through. I decided that some day I would get to a place where I could recover.

I ran after God as long and as hard as I could, but I could not connect to God emotionally and so I could not connect to His HEART. So when I read the bible, I saw a violent and angry God, not a loving God. I saw a destroyer, not a healer.

Not being able to see His love for people meant that I mainly saw His laws and rules. I was well on my way to being Pharisaical (bound by rules and law and cut off). Not feeling my emotions, grace and love were foreign concepts to me. Therefore, no matter how hard I tried to connect to God, I could never really connect to God.

I shoved down my anger toward God, because I thought that being angry was NOT ok. I shoved down my loneliness. I shoved down the yucky feelings. I thought it was all un-biblical. I was SO wrong.

Not feeling my needs doesn’t mean I didn’t have needs. I still had needs. And as I repressed my needs, they only grew and grew. Like spending $100 on your credit card each month will eventually build up into an enormous debt. I had been collecting debt since I was born. I tried to cash out as a 20 year old with suicide, but God intervened. He assured me that He had something for me to live for. I struggled on. Things got a bit better. I got a job. I moved into a share house on the beach. I got some self respect and self esteem.

Then I got married. It should have been a wonderful thing, but we were both damaged and hurt – and I suppose that we simply proceeded to hurt one another. In some cases my (righteous) anger should have raised it’s head and forced a confrontation that would have saved me a great deal of pain… but I didn’t feel my anger and so it didn’t raise up and didn’t save me from the pain.

Feeling my emotions and needs would have saved me a lot of future pain. Our feelings of fear, indignation, discomfort… these feelings help us to stay safe, they help us to recognize when we are being abused or used (which is abuse) or being taken advantage of (which is also abuse).

I guess I also went back into the role of lost child again. I didn’t communicate. She perhaps went into her role (I imagine the relationship wasn’t much fun for her either).

I tried to follow the literal interpretation of the bible and turn the other check, forgive and forget… but this was a disaster of an approach in a marriage because above all else marriage requires feeling your emotions AND feeling the other person’s emotions. It requires people to be adults and face the issues together. It requires communication and the ability to bond and connect.

We did our best, but we were highly dysfunctional. It ended with me literally disintegrating as a person.

BREAKDOWN

I had this tearing sensation in my head one day and I feared for my life. I stopped walking. I felt as if I had even one more shock wave from my feet, I would literally die. I stood there holding my head trying to stop the tearing sensation happening inside my head, not wanting to breathe too hard in case I died.

In that moment the complete repression of my feelings had built to a critical mass. A lack of love, a lack of self respect, a lack of support, a lack of connection and a build up of debt (the $100 concept) had reached a crisis point.

The crises had now turned into something much deeper and more serious. To protect myself from totally falling apart, my brain cut myself off from myself.

I forgot what I had been through. I forgot the pain. I forgot who I was. I forgot how I had tried. I forgot what I had said. I forgot my past.

The spiral UP

All I knew was I was in crises. I felt like I was a new book, learning everything from the start again. I remained like this for about 2 years as I grew stronger as a person . It was like a complete time-out. I felt utterly disoriented. But in this time I grew as a person.

At first I was a person who didn’t believe in counseling, didn’t feel emotions, couldn’t remember my past at all, couldn’t even remember the events in my marriage.

Over time, with God leading me by the hand, and through many trials I evolved into someone who now has a sense of what God wants for us… it is to be WHOLE and HEALTHY.

I went for HEAPS of counseling. Some of it was utterly harmful. I went for HEAPS of deliverance. Some of it bordered on the occult.

But then I ended up with loving people and I took off and flew like a bird. I was parented by loving people. I watched and listened and learned. I learned about people. I learned about me.

About 2 years ago God began to re-integrate me. Bit by bit. Some memories came back. Slowly… so that I could accept them. Then when I accepted the memories, my emotions came back. If I accepted the hurt emotions from back then, my NOW feelings came back. Eventually connection to my body came back as well. Part by part.

I began to remember what ACTUALLY happened, not what people told me happened. As I gained the FULL picture, I began to understand myself, I began to respect myself, I began to get a clearer picture of me. With a better understanding of me, I began to make better decisions.

I began to find my way. I could FEEL my way. I could SENSE my way. I was increasingly in touch with myself. Feeling me meant I could feel others too. My relationships deepened. The sense of isolation lessened. I did less frequent porn and less other things as I felt more whole inside.

The general sense of completeness increased. The feeling of warmth began to flood my life in December 2006. Now it’s June 2007 and I can hardly remember NOT feeling warmth in my body. THANK YOU LORD!!!

Learning to overcome

To be fair and balanced, during these 4 years the enemy took full advantage and I suffered enormously. There was a massive spike in his rights to me. There are various reasons for this, including being taught to be under law (closing this and that door) instead of being made righteous by my faith (leaving the rotten house!). So as I was under law, the enemy has all the rights and I was utterly exposed to him. He took full advantage.

Another reason for the darkness in my life, in my house, around me house… was that the bible says that if someone has hatred (which is just a LOT of anger) then they walk in darkness.

Whoever says he is in the Light and [yet] hates his brother [Christian, born-again child of God his Father] is in darkness even until now.

Whoever loves his brother [believer] abides (lives) in the Light, and in It or in him there is no occasion for stumbling or cause for error or sin.

But he who hates (detests, despises) his brother [in Christ] is in darkness and walking (living) in the dark; he is straying and does not perceive or know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes. – 1 John 2:9-11

I was in darkness BECAUSE I had refused to let my anger out. Like the $100 concept, my anger had built up into hatred. I lived in spiritual darkness even though I was a completely and utterly committed Christian who was running hard after God.

The double bind that the enemy counted on was that I was disconnected from myself, so how could I know that I had hatred? If I couldn’t reach the part of me walking in hatred, I wouldn’t know. He settled in for what he thought would be a lifetime of harassing me.

And he did. I would find myself talking in my sleep or talking to a spirit while dozing in the bath. It was weird and freaky and no amount of “spiritual warfare” would set me free for long.

How wrong he was to think that Jesus didn’t have an answer. Jesus had the answer… 2000 years ago. It’s just that no one told me!

IN JESUS NAME I learned that He has paid for our sins. I learned that I am rescued. (See All of your sins are paid for… IF you will believe)

since a death has taken place which rescues and delivers and redeems them – Heb 9:15

By believing that Jesus has paid for and set me free, the enemy lost all his rights and hidden advantages over me.

I came into fellowship with God and with His blessings and healing pouring down on me, it took only a matter of months for my healing to accelerate and for the enemy to NOT ONLY completely lose his rights to me, but to actually be forced AWAY from me.

Healing came to all of me. Seen and unseen. I would watch it happening day by day. I still watch it, every day.

I learned a VAST amount about spiritual warfare. I learned about how to get clean, because Jesus paid for ALL the sins of the WHOLE world. And I stood on that, in order to deprive the enemy of his rights.

For then would He often have had to suffer [over and over again] since the foundation of the world. But as it now is, He has once for all at the consummation and close of the ages appeared to put away and abolish sin by His sacrifice [of Himself] – Heb 9:26

Christ, having been offered to take upon Himself and bear as a burden the sins of many once and once for all, will appear a second time, not to carry any burden of sin nor to deal with sin – Heb 9:28

Every time the enemy comes against me my prayer is a simple confession “Jesus paid for me. Jesus paid for my house. Jesus paid for my land”. And the enemy is driven off. Truly we can overcome!

And they have overcome (conquered) him by means of the blood of the Lamb and by the utterance of their testimony – Rev 12:11

I learned heaps about people and how we work. I learned about God’s loving nature and His goodness (and about law, righteousness and more).

These 4 years (from the break until now) are an incredible story of God’s healing, reliance on God when my mind was freaking out and being built in His image. Almost all of my posts on this blog (500-ish posts) are explanations of what I learned.

When Jesus intervened supernaturally in my life as a suicidal 20 year old and He encouraged me to go on, that He had something for me, He had in mind that I help other people to find the way out. It’s truly a life worth living.

I heartily recommend you steel yourself (be strong and very courageous – Joshua 1:6,7,9,18) and learn what Jesus did for you, stand on it to free yourself AND overcome the enemy AND THEN turn and set others free IN JESUS NAME.

Filed under: Healing

Getting back in touch and acceptance with ourselves after abuse

People who go through physical abuse might lose touch with their BODY.

If we experience something that we cannot process, we cut it off. If the experience comes through our body, we may cut off awareness of our body and how it feels. To regain the feeling of our body, we need to FEEL our body. This can be a physical sensation or emotional.

It is only in the last few years – as I received healing in my emotions and in my thoughts – that I have felt connected to my body again. At first I was washing in the shower and I slid the soap cloth over my chest and I FELT my chest.

At other times the connection was emotional and internal. Suddenly I would FEEL MY LEGS and I’d realize that I had not been in touch with my legs before.

The reason I disconnected is that in order to survive physical abuse I had to disconnect from my body. But now, I have grown to become STRONG enough to face those hidden memories.

When I grow in strength – that means I’m emotionally stronger, more self aware, I have a support network of friends – then my conscience (or brain) gives me some of the past hidden hurts (hidden in my memory) and it waits to see if I can process the hurt successfully. If I handle it without losing control of my life, it pauses a bit and then hands me some more stuff to process. If I get overwhelmed, it might not give me anything for another few months until I am strong enough.

As I write this, I wonder what how much of this process was God and how much was my brain. hehehe. God is SUCH a good God isn’t He? THANK YOU LORD. But either way, the process repeated itself over many years. Bit by bit.

People who go through emotional abuse might lose touch with their EMOTIONS.

It is called dissociation. We all lose touch when we day dream. That’s no problem. But when we lose touch entirely with memories and events and eventually our feelings, that is when we are hiding our sad experiences from ourselves. The most extreme forms of this are DID/MPD.

The solution in my experience is the same… to pray for healing, to know the truth of what Jesus did for me, to grow and enlarge as a person, to become an adult and put off childish ways.

When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child. But when I grew up, I put away childish things. – 1 Cor 13:11

The way back is to be strong and courageous and face life head on. Grow and become an adult. Learn to be strong emotionally. Learn social skills and build a network of friends. As you do this, you will be able to face your past with greater and greater ease.

People who go through sexual abuse might lose touch with their SEXUALITY.

This makes sense, because if the pain came through sex, in order to cut off the pain, we then deny our sexuality. So we might remain a child (because children don’t have sex) or we might ignore those feelings (as if they are dirty or wrong). But the problem is that if we repress our feelings, we lose the ability to feel. So in my experience, as I face up to my past, I began to feel MORE sexual and not less. And as I overcame feelings of helplessness I began to feel MORE potent and alive.

And the opposite is true too… as I began to accept that I am sexual and sexy (without acting on it in terms of sex before marriage or anything else) I actually found that this acceptance of myself and acceptance of my feelings resulted in me FEELING MORE and having a better natural and emotional and NON-sexual connection to others.

It’s a bit of a cycle that goes around. Deny the pain (a feeling) from this experience and as a result lose those other feelings as well. Acknowledge and accept those “bad” feelings and receive back these hidden good feelings.

If you shut off your bad feelings you lose your good feelings too. To acknowledge your bad feelings and accept them, is to be reconnected to GOOD feelings.
Facing up to my painful past has resulted in me receiving greater rewards than I ever imagined. I now have a MUCH richer and warmer and move loving world. I honestly had NO IDEA that people were this good. I had NO IDEA that life felt so wonderful. I had no idea that I had so much to offer give.

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. – John 10:10

Now I know I am loveable. I know I have the ability to love. I know that my past is… past.

In order to write these blogs and get the immense enjoyment out of helping people and discovering what I am really good at (helping people!) I had to accept and process my hurt past. Because I accepted my hurt past and loved myself anyway, I have got access to a wonderful new life of feelings, warmth and connection to myself and other people (and God!)

Abuse is a bad thing, but God can use it for good.

I hope you can see that the solution is

• Ask Jesus for help - and keep asking – and keep asking
• Come out from isolation. Learn to form friends. Learn to connect. Learn to bond.
• If your past surfaces as a memory, be courageous and face what happened to you.
• Grow into an adult. Develop a sense of yourself, your likes, your dislikes.
• Listen to your inner conscience – if it warns you, listen to it. Listen to your feelings of anxiety and move away from people who leave you feeling down or sad or empty. These are unhealthy relationships.

Did you know that one of the names that God gives to Himself is “Jehovah-Rophe – the Lord who heals”. I have found that this is absolutely true. God DOES heal.

JEHOVAH-ROPHE: “The Lord Who Heals” Ex 15:22-26. From “rophe” (“to heal”); implies spiritual, emotional as well as physical healing. (Jer 30:17, Jer 3:22; Isa. 61:1) God heals body, soul and spirit; all levels of man’s being.

Source: The names of God

I have experienced all of these things and I thank my Heavenly Father in Heaven that I have learned to be an overcomer. You can too. He helped me immeasurably, He wants to help you too. May God bless you.

Filed under: Healing

Recovering after abuse – restoring a healthy conscience

If our parents caused us to strive for perfection, or if they didn’t hear us when we talked about how we felt, we may have stopped talking. As a result we may not be in touch with our likes and dislikes.

In the same way, because of abuse (emotional, physical, sexual, neglect, etc.) we may have stopped listening to the part of us which is called our conscience. If we don’t have that inner voice telling us what is good for us and bad for us, we will lose one of the biggest sources of information in our life.

If you want to read about this in more detail I recommend this sermon transcript Developing a Conscience. In my post I will skim over the top or high level issues and I won’t include heaps and heaps of scripture. So for the low down, read that sermon.

Our inner conscience needs to be listened to. If it’s not working well, it might need to be restored and THEN listened to.

The reason a healthy conscience is useful and valuable to us is because it tells us when we are happy, when we are not happy, when we are safe or not safe.

For example, if our conscience sends up a message of being uncomfortable, we need to stop what we are doing and look around. Is someone somehow threatening us? If so, LEAVE! Move away. Children needto learn to listen to this inner voice… if someone makes you feel scared because of the way they are looking at you, tell an adult.

And for us adults, the signal is the same, the uncomfortable feeling we have inside. The solution is similar… move to be near people who make us feel SAFE, or move AWAY from the person who is giving off this feeling of danger.

If our conscience sends up a message of anxiety, we need to listen. We need to act on it. We must listen to it and change our behavior. That is partly how we will heal and partly how we will become safe.

I always try to maintain a clear conscience before God and all people. – Acts 24:16

We DON’T have to intellectually understand why this person (or situation) is making us anxious, but we DO need to LISTEN to this feeling. Our feelings need to be heard by ourselves and we need to react to what they are saying – otherwise those inner feelings will simply stop.

If our conscience stops warnings us and our feelings no longer warn us, then we will find it very difficult to navigate the waters of society. You might have heard that 90% of all communication is non-verbal? It is an immense amount of information is passed “on the quiet” and we send and receive that information as emotions and they are displayed through our body position and through pheromones.

Pheromones are why we can walk into a room and FEEL the anger. But if we can’t feel the anger or danger, if we can’t feel the anxiety or the fear… then we will have difficulty staying in safe waters and we become an easy target for abusers.

Another way to understand our conscience is to think of an inner voice. Unfortunately our inner voice might say negative things to us

• “you’re bad”
• “you are dirty”

and this is a sign of an unhealthy conscience. The solution is simply to TALK BACK and state the truth. the ultimate truth is this one

there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus – Rom 8:1

So if there is no condemnation, simply refuse to accept what your hurt conscience is saying to you. And it also helps to recognize that your conscience was hurt by someone and it’s their words that are being parroted to us. The words of a father or mother (or abuser) can be replayed in our thoughts over and over. Simply TALK BACK and state the truth.

• God doesn’t make junk!
• There is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus
• God loves me
• I love me
• I belong with my church, my family, my friends

I felt dirty on the inside of myself by the time I was a teenager. So when I met really nice people, I would move away from them because I didn’t want them to become infect with “whatever” I felt I had hidden inside of me.

If only I had known. When people suffer abuse, they do exactly this – and the isolation creates an enormously bigger need and problem. Isolating ourselves is NO SOLUTION.

We may have yucky feelings on the inside, but that is no reason to isolate ourselves. It’s just a good reason to ask God for help in prayer. It’s a good reason to find a church where they will pray for you. It’s a good reason to think carefully about who is a healthy friend and who is not AND STAY WITH THE HEALTHY ONES.

I hope you can see that the solution is:

• Ask Jesus for help - and keep asking – and keep asking
• Come out from isolation. Learn to form friends. Learn to connect. Learn to bond.
• If your past surfaces as a memory, be courageous and face what happened to you.
• Grow into an adult. Develop a sense of yourself, your likes, your dislikes.
• Listen to your inner conscience – if it warns you, listen to it. Listen to your feelings of anxiety and move away from people who leave you feeling down or sad or empty. These are unhealthy relationships.

Did you know that one of the names that God gives to Himself is “Jehovah-Rophe – the Lord who heals”. I have found that this is absolutely true. God DOES heal.

JEHOVAH-ROPHE: “The Lord Who Heals” Ex 15:22-26. From “rophe” (“to heal”); implies spiritual, emotional as well as physical healing. (Jer 30:17, Jer 3:22; Isa. 61:1) God heals body, soul and spirit; all levels of man’s being.

Source: The names of God

I have experienced all of these things and I thank my Heavenly Father in Heaven that I have learned to be an overcomer. You can too. He helped me immeasurably, He wants to help you too. May God bless you.

Filed under: Healing

What it means to parent yourself

A part of becoming an adult is… choosing to BE the adult in YOUR life.

I had to learn to NOT place other people in a parental position above me. Don’t put the pastor above me, I am his/her equal. Don’t put teachers above me, I am their equal too.

So instead of looking to an adult for…

• approval, you have to decide if YOU think YOU are doing well
• constant assistance, you have to learn to assist yourself
• protection, you have to learn to find safe homes, you have to learn to recognize safe people
• soothing words, you have to learn to speak kindly to yourself

Stop asking people “what do you think?” as much and decide what you think. It’s actually ok to ASK the question of many others, but the DECISION of what YOU THINK is what will matter in your life. I see people as me what I think and they nod their heads and simply accept what I say. But this is not adulthood. They must hear my words, hear other views – and make a decision of their own.
You and I are the equal of each other. There is no other human being who is better than us. They will have different responsibilities to me (they may run a school or university) but they are a fallen and broken human who also deals with stuff.

Seeing other people as they really are helped me to accept myself. If I am fallen and you are fallen and we all are fallen… then I’m “normal”. You’re normal. We all are equal.

Instead of looking for adults to show me the way, I have to find my own way. Instead of placing myself in a “one-down” position to people I admire, I learned to admire them and remain their equal. Instead of accepting their views as my own, I had to decide what my own views are (and they might be the same, or be different).

If you are physically an adult (not still living at home under supervision) and have a decision to make, in order to become an adult you might need to stop going to your designated adult (or parent) and make the decision yourself.

Paul puts it bluntly…

When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child. But when I grew up, I put away childish things. – 1 Cor 13:11

We are not to be one-down to our partners either. The bible says that we leave our parents (one down) and cleave to our partner (in the side/ribs as equals). Leaving is painful and scary. Leaving the illusion (if you had ineffective parents). Leaving the comfort (if you were fortunate to have supportive parents). Either way you HAVE to leave.

Adulthood (like manhood or womanhood) has to be learned. There is no way around it. Your parents may have taught you how to make decisions. They may have encouraged you to own your own body, own your feelings, own your will, own your decisions… so for you leaving is not difficult.

But for the rest of us, leaving the illusion of safety requires us to own our choices, own our weaknesses, recognize our strengths, feel our emotions (and learn to manage these emotions).

It’s a challenge, because when we see our weaknesses, we have to decide WHAT TO DO about them. How will we handle them? If we are prone to panic, we might need to learn how to calm down. If we slip into a state of passivity, we might need to learn about being intentional.

But the good news is that when we have left, we can grow, and when we grow into our own adults (or into our own parents) we no longer look at the world as big and scary filled with powerful strong people, as we become adults we see the people in the world for who they really are… and we see that we fit in it as equals. It’s not scary.

Filed under: Healing