August 25, 2015 - Change is Just Dang Hard!

Personal Note:  I want to thank you for the overwhelming and I have to say unexpected responses I have received.  If one person can gain encouragement and hope from all of this mess, I am grateful.  So...thank you as it has given me the courage to keep unpacking.


August 25, 2015

I wish I could say that everything became instantaneously better.  The progress was so glacially slow that to the normal eye, it might not seem like anything at all was happening.  In my spiritual life, I had released the bitterness in that epic purse dump a few blog posts back, yet the wounds still remained.  Looking back, I think that the bitterness was keeping the healing process from taking place.

Think of a person that has scraped the bottom of their foot on a rock in the river. For all intensive purposes, let's call it the "River of Denial," shall we?  "It'll be alright!" He said. So he puts a Ninja Turtle band-aid on and a sweaty sock and keeps going.  It's slightly painful but "it will get better!" He exclaims.  Meanwhile, bacteria from the river seeps into the scrape and coupled with the dirty, sweaty sock creates the perfect climate for a lab experiment to occur. Bacteria, now left unattended leads to a localized staff infection. "It will heal on it's own.  No worries!" He says, limping around and refusing the medical attention he needs.  Bacteria now enters the blood stream and a simple scrape has become a systemic, full-body infection that can and will kill him in the end.  Do you see the progression?

So, how does that apply here?

I had allowed bitterness and anger over the death of my Dad, the broken heart of my mother, the death of The Kingdom Kidz Club and the loss of a new career I loved to fester for far too long.  I had a raging spiritual septic infection.  So, when I was finally willing to release all of that to the Lord, ONLY THEN  was the infection removed and the healing process could begin.  I had serious, deeply infected wounds that needed to heal from the inside out.  This process was not days or even weeks or months but almost two years. During those years, I didn't doubt my faith in terms of Christ's Sacrifice for my sin.  I just thought that God had passed me by and I was destined to live out the rest of my life living in the Desert.  I had lost hope.

I distinctly remembering a Sunday Morning as the band was leading us in corporate worship, a gratefulness to God welled up from deep in my soul and I WANTED to sing.  It wasn't a habit or something rote...it was real.  From my heart to God's heart.  After years of the song in my heart lying dormant (or dead as I thought) the feeling of nearness to God was completely overwhelming.  Like a loved one who had been dead for several years all of the sudden calling your cell phone to talk. Bring on the Ugly Cry again.  Even late into the evening, the tears were still flowing.  These were different tears though.  They were healing tears.

Psalm 56:8 in The Message says, "You've kept track of every toss and turn through the sleepless nights.  Each tear entered into Your ledger, each ache written in Your Book."

I was certain there were miles of healing ahead for me...but that touch from God reassured me that He had not left me and was working on my behalf.

More to come...