The times that I belly flop, make a mistake, hurt those I love, or times I just plan ole show my humanness, I have found the person hardest on me, is well, myself. I use to try over the top to make sure I said the right thing, did the right thing, was the right thing. I had so many friendships come and go I couldn’t bare anymore leaving, especially not from me running my mouth or hurting someone. I had been hurt so many times before by friends, people, and I couldn’t stand to do it to someone else. Living like that had put me into bondage, I was walking on eggshells, but the one I was trying to keep safe was me.
I have begun to let myself off the hook. Still being sensitive to those around me, still apologizing when I have hurt someone or talking to someone I think I might have hurt and righting the relationship. But, I am no longer allowing myself to walk on eggshells, I am letting myself, be me! I am beginning to see that God uses my belly flops, it’s odd and kind of funny, but, he uses my mistakes. I’m learning that when I allow others to see my failure, it allows them to share their failures, and it is freeing how allowing others to see your failures, allowing others to see Jesus pick you up and dust you off, and how letting Jesus love me brings me peace, people are attracted to that. If God can love me through the muck and mud of life, than it gives others hope, that God can love them, too. When I voice my failures, especially an addiction in my life be it chocolate, ice cream, yelling at my kid’s, when I voice these not only to myself and God, but to Mark and my trusted family and friends, it gives Jesus power and banishes Satan from the hold! If I confess it, I begin to be honest with myself, I bring it into the light, and I begin to allow Jesus to fill me, to heal me, to make me hole. When I fill the hole to overflowing with Jesus there is no room for the addiction, there is only room for the fruit that Jesus will produce from the overflow that is pouring out of the peace and joy he gives me.
I’m letting myself off the hook, I’m letting Jesus in, letting him work through me instead of me trying for all I’m worth to work for him. Working for Jesus is so much work! It’s work because it’s “I” focused, it’s me doing something for him. It needs to be, it has to be Jesus working through me, it has to be me being the willing vessel, the tool he uses to speak and act, but it must be Jesus through me.
I use to wonder how spending more time in prayer, more time in the bible, more time at church could make me more depressed. It did! Those around me would tell me pray more, spend more time in the word, but it didn’t help. I wanted it to help, I desperately wanted to be closer to the Lord! What I had was head knowledge and I knew it, I didn’t know how to have heart knowledge, which I knew would make all the difference. I was raised in the church, I knew scripture backwards and forwards, I went to church, so why was I so sad? Reading the bible, praying, and going to church are amazing tools God has given us, they are definitely important and this is going to sound weird but they are not what gave me heart knowledge. Heart knowledge came when I was willing to truly surrender everything over to him. Heart knowledge came from simply sitting on his lap and letting him love me. Heart knowledge came when I was able to truly get angry at some things that happened in my life. When I learned that an overall umbrella forgiveness is not enough when one has been deeply hurt, that each and every offense must go through the grieving process of anger, hurt, acceptance, and then forgiveness. I couldn’t understand for a long time how I could still be so angry if I had truly forgiven those who had hurt me. It was because I couldn’t say I forgive you and let it go. Once I went through and got angry, sobbed my eyes out, let every angry and hurt tear out of my body, only then I found deep forgiveness. It was amazing because in this process of weeding through forgiveness, when I allowed Jesus to meet me in the sea of tears and hurt, that is where I found heart knowledge.
Now, when I’m hurt, I don’t always run for my bible, because what I need more than anything is to just sit in my Abba’s lap and let him tell me how he loves me. I need to weep in his arms, I need to get angry and tell him it’s not fair. My tears, my sitting become my prayer. There have been times in my life when I have taken a break from the church body, in fact I took a three year break, honestly, it was wonderful. I needed to heal, I needed to search, and some how I couldn’t do it in a church building. With that said, I was still surrounded with the body of Christ, I sought wise counsel, I hung out with friends who deeply and passionately lived out their lives for Christ. I drew encouragement from them and they drew encouragement from me. These friends helped walk me through a time of searching. Something I have realized is reading my bible, prayer, and church are works and while I have known they are not what saves me, in many ways I acted like it did. I also did not understand what a blood covenant is or what a blood covenant representative is and why it’s important with my relationship with Jesus to understand it. Understanding these two things has made the bible come alive for me! It makes sense in a way that it never did before, my relationship with Jesus makes heart sense in ways it never did! Before coming to understand blood covenant I was blind as a bat, I did not have the whole picture, now that I do, it’s amazing. Now that I understand that there is not one thing I can do to rescue myself, that I 100% need Jesus in a way I never fathomed before I am set free. Knowing that regardless of if I fail or succeed, God will use both in my life to show me how precious I am to him and how much he loves me.
I am off the hook, I am set free, Jesus, my blood covenant representative took my place! Amazing love, amazing peace, amazing joy is found in the blood of the lamb!