During
our debrief on Koh Samet Island I faced some pretty difficult truths
about myself, confessed them and found freedom, real freedom. I am a
different person now. Through conversations here and there I can tell
the difference in me, and a deep joy has returned…I’m even giddy
again. 😉
And
I want to share with you what has occurred in my life, which takes
humility and extreme honesty to post on here for anyone to read.
Last
month in Thailand was my worst month here on the race. I was battling
depression, questioning why I was even on the race, feeling distant
from God and everyone else and had a bad attitude. (Although there
were some good things that occurred during the month too, these are
just the bad ones.) I left Chiang Mai feeling so broken and ashamed
really, for how the month went. It was on the bus ride to Bangkok
that I met back up with Tim and shared with him about the ugly of the
month I had, and he responded out of brotherly love with a rebuke
basically. He told me of this pattern he had noticed of me
victimizing myself and not walking in victory. For me it was a
spiritual slap in the face, and I instantly knew he was right, but
told him I had to think about it. You see, I’ve always hated it when
people victimized themselves, and here I was doing exactly that.
Then
after we arrived on the island Teri talked with me about some things
she had noticed as well. By the time I showed up to worship that
night I was doing some serious soul searching. I didn’t like what I
saw, for there was victimization, manipulation, attention-seeking,
selfishness and control there. Melissa came over and I shared with
her what was going on. The realization came that I was trying to find
my value/approval in Man because I didn’t wholly trust God. Then we
prayed breaking off all the spiritual bonds with all those evil
things. I knew I was truly free from them! Then we proclaimed Truth
and that I trust Him.
However,
I knew I still needed to find the root of that lack of trust. So the
next morning I set out to find the answers with God. And He did not
fail to give answers. He told me that He had to bring me back to the
place where it began, this lie that God is not good or enough.
Although I thought I had forgiven all parties involved during a
difficult period of my life, God showed me that I was still harboring
unforgiveness for specific things from this time in my past. He
showed me how during this time I let the lie take root in my life and
it was allowed to stay because of the unforgiveness. And so I chose
to forgive, even though some things were harder than others, I still
chose to forgive. With each confession of forgiveness I found more
and more joy bubbling up over the goodness of God. To continue the
healing process further I cut off soul ties and have chosen to only
have my soul tied to Yahweh.
As
I said before, I am a different person. I feel like I can finally go
forth on this race (and life) as the person I’m suppose to become. I
can see how I can become the woman that God wants me to be, whereas
before I couldn’t understand how I would ever become that person. I
am walking in victory and freedom, and there is NO other way to walk.
