Let’s get REAL

I’m sitting on my bed in
Tanzania (aka my mat and my sleeping bag) and I’m forcing myself to listen to
the song “How He Loves” until I believe it, I mean REALLY believe it.  I need to believe it in my heart and not just
in my head. I’m constantly talking about God’s love and I’m constantly speaking
value and worth over others and I finally realized at my Month 8 debrief that I
don’t even believe it.  I can see value
and worth in others but I don’t see it in myself.  I don’t see myself as a princess in the Lord’s
Kingdom.  I believe it in my head because
I know that is what the Lord says about me and I know that he speaks the truth
but I don’t believe it in my heart. 

How have I never realized
until now that I feel like I need to earn God’s love?  I associate God’s love with love from a
person because that’s all I have ever known of love.  But how can I associate his love with the
love of a person when his love isn’t of this earth?  How do I disconnect the two? 

“This is real love-not that
we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away
our sins.”  1 John 4:10

That is real love…this is
real love.  I am living in the midst of
real love, I am drowning in that love and I can’t even feel it. 

All these things spoken over
me my whole life are keeping me in bondage. 
I’m a slave to the enemies lies. 
They are echoing in my head:

•   Selfish
•   Immature
•  Unrealistic
•   Too care free
•   Irresponsible
•   Weird
• Awkward

The list goes on and on…

I can’t break through.  I can’t feel his love because I’m allowing
these lies to trap me.  People have
spoken these things over me, people who I love. 
I know that they didn’t mean to make me become a slave to their words
but I am. 

I’m stuck and I don’t know
how to break through.  I know that I have
the authority to call the enemy (the devil) out on his shit (excuse my French)
and I’m trying to but these words keep echoing in my head.  I know that’s not who I am.  I know the Holy Spirit lives inside of me and
I know that I am filled with the fruits of the spirit: Love, Joy, Peace,
Patience (Patience…haha…I know what you are all thinking), Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness, and Self Control. 

I just want to feel it!  I just want to feel His love.  I want to feel His unconditional love when I
am in the midst of doing something that will hurt Him.  Its easy to feel His love when I’m praising
Him or when I’m bringing glory to His name but I want to feel His love in the
midst of my storm.  I want to hear Him
whisper, “I still love you.”  I want to
know that He will never leave me, that He will never even threaten to leave
me.  I want to know that He loves me
because He just does.  I don’t have to do
anything to earn His love, I can’t do anything to earn His love. 

I’m still listening to that
song:

And oh, how He loves us, oh
Oh, how He loves us, how He loves us all

Yeah, He loves us, oh, how He loves us
Oh, how He loves us, oh how He loves
Oh,