The fact that I think that I can only be used for the Glory of God once my struggle is gone is a lie. Satan is feeding me a horrible lie; not only to me, but to plenty of other people. Sometimes our pain and struggle is exactly how God wants to advance His kingdom and show His glory.
I have this picture in my head of me: lean-mean-fightin-machine, the radiance dancing off my lips as I beam from ear to ear…unbelievably joyful on launch day… carrying my pack on my back without a care in the world. Im letting the sun pour over my face through the airport glass and though theres many people around me all I see is me… free.
How desperately do I want that. I want to launch into missions completely set free and eager to be the hands and feet of God ! And I know, that in Gods due time, I will no longer feel the pain and weight of these chains Im held back by. I don’t want to battle every second of every day fighting to just suppress the horrible lies that I succumb too and tell myself. Seriously, there is so many other things to be focusing on and fighting than my self-image and satan knows that he can cloud my mind with my biggest weakness so that I won’t be able to be used for the kingdom. THIS HAS TO STOP. I need breakthrough! I need clarity! I need truth spoken over my life! Do you know how many seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years, and decades I have woken up every morning already on the defense with my sword in hand trying to convince myself that Im beautiful. How in the world do other people just wake up and never once think about their appearance? They’re thinking about what they should do today or a big test they have… perhaps they’ve woken up praising God for the sunshine… and although I deeply desire that, Im bound by my chains of self hatred. Oh, Lord! I know you can use my brokenness and so that is my prayer! That if I have to endure this any longer you use my years of struggle and sleepless nights to join in suffering with others, who, like me, have no self confidence or self esteem; others who have gone to extreme lengths to make themselves happy by perfecting their outward appearance.
Lord I want to seek you, to find you where I think there is no hope. I owe it to myself to set aside the time to pour out my heart and desire to be free. I’ve wasted so many weeks trying to fight these thoughts and feelings and emotions and I have not gotten anywhere. You, God, obviously want to break me during this time over the things that have controlled my life for so long. I WANT to surrender! I want to succeed and pass this test! Ive been running in the opposite direction only wanting to suppress the hurt and the anger and fear, but I know now that you want me to feel those things and to cry out to you. This is SO hard. So, so hard to allow pain to happen. But, if there wasn’t anything dragging me under then I wouldn’t have a reason to seek you or to need your help, healing, or miracles, would I? I need a miracle. I need to be freed from this continuous bondage of self hatred. It was never intended by you for anyone to belittle themselves because they don’t have a picture perfect body. I whisper failure because I have yet to get control over my eating habbits and my weight fluctuating. But is this really MY failure? My FAULT? What if Youre allowing me to be broken, so I can be healed? What if your allowing me to be imperfect so I can be made perfect in YOU?
This jail I live in is horrible. I sit in this cell with my hands on the bars and tears streaming down my face begging to be set free! Voices… many voices tell me Im just not trying hard enough or haven’t fully surrender the issue to the Lord. -> “Just give it to God! He’ll take it away if you do!” There is a lesson that I think many disciples need to learn. Sometimes we are not freed from bondage because we have yet to surrender to God and allow Him to take our yoke from us. But there is an important lesson that is missed out on sometimes. God is the God of the universe! He gives and He takes away, but not according to our works or our timing. I learned this lesson after many knights of ceaselessly falling on my knees pouring out my heart before God and begging Him to take away my struggle and ceaselessly surrendering it to Him. And God spoke to me and said, not yet my child.
Why? Why would God continue to let me struggle with sin and not release me from bondage? Because, He has a purpose for my pain. He knows that my story is powerful and I am not a quitter. No, this doesn’t mean that I should continue to sin just because God wont release me from the bondage but that I don’t need to keep begging the Father to take it. Im struggling with how to put this in simple terms… We think that if we ask God to take our sin and struggle that just because we surrender He will hear our cry and automatically release us, but God is God! Even over our sin! He may want to grow and produce more fruit in you and so He allows the struggle to continue. In my case this has to do with food. My struggle is with food and how I treat my body. So many times Ive hit rock bottom. I spent countless hours on my hands and knees begging God to hear me and to release me from having to fight this. I was doing everything I could to defeat it whether is was intense counseling, or praying. And God answered that it wasn’t time yet. In His timing even our sin is taken away by God. Just because WE choose to release our pain to God doesn’t mean its HIS time to set us free. Even our freedom is in Gods perfect timing.
This is hard for some to grasp and I have been told that I haven’t surrendered all of my struggle to God yet and that Im not trying hard enough. God doesn’t want me to try harder. I have opened up every crevice in my heart attached to my sin and struggle with my eating habits, body, and self image and God still allows me to sit in the pain. I am convinced that He has allowed me to feel this pain and emotional turmoil, because, in the future, it is going to be such a powerful testimony to be able to sympathize! And not just empathize with other women who have struggled through this horrible bondage. And although I am eager for the day that God takes this thorn from my side, I have to embrace it and allow the tears to fall and myself to fail because there is beauty and purpose in it. God is purposely allowing me to live the struggle that hundreds of other people are dealing with, not as punishment, not because I haven’t surrendered to God, but because I am usable! You know how time is one of the most important gifts you can give someone? My pain and the fact that God is letting me feel, experience, and live carrying the chains others bear is the most valuable gift I will be able to give the people who He wants to heal (in His time). Theres freedom in knowing someone else has struggled through what you have.
In a way, it resembles the fact that Jesus knows every struggle we have because He has endured it. I believe that He has blessed me to be struggling with this even though I hate it with all my being, I choose to believe that it IS for His glory. I don’t need to fight it anymore. I need to sit in the arms of my God and trust Him as to why He hasn’t taken this away yet. So, if youre wondering what is wrong with you and if YOU haven’t done enough to be set free from the pain, struggle, and sin youre in, its selfish to think that its something that YOU haven’t done yet to surrender all to the Father. Because God is the only on with the power to take it away. Mind you, this is for the people who have surrendered their struggle to God already. If you haven’t atelast tried to be healed or asked and believed God that He would take away your pain, then that’s the first step. He may very well be waiting for you to surrender and seek Him, but for those who are at a loss as to what to do because they’ve already sought out God and pleaded for freedom, sometimes He is using us in our weakness. He uses us because we are strong enough to endure the pain because we have Him to lean back on. And so, I hope someone out there is taking a deep breath and laying down in the rest of the Father knowing that this isn’t their fault and there isn’t anything else they can do except trust what God is doing through their pain. Stop fighting, stop running, stop pleading, and let the pain happen, let the tears fall, and your heart break because God will use your broken pieces to make new pottery out of other broken people.
I cant help but think that even though I HATE THIS STRUGGLE, God has a purpose! He chose me to be a Job. He allowed the enemy to roam the earth and test His servant Melissa. And though I’ve failed many times because I have tried to fight this on my own, I WILL succeed because I will learn to allow the Father to pick me back up and continue to try no matter how many times Ive already failed.
–> 1 Peter 1:7-9
“In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. Thhese have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith-of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire-may result in praise, glort and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. Though you have not seen Him, you love Him; and even though you do not see Him now, you believe in Him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls.”
