The Lord continues to challenge me in my vulnerability and humility. While it’s easier to step into this atmosphere than it used to be, letting the world know that I don’t have it all together is still difficult at times. It hurts my pride, hence the humility part, but He keeps assuring me that my letting others know He not only uses imperfect people, but He loves them, too, is part of His reasoning for asking me to do things like this. It’s also why He keeps allowing me to experience some of the crazy things I experience – so I can learn more about who He is in a personal way, and through that He can help me encourage others as I share the truth of His character.
I heard a song today that I’ve never heard before, and its effect on me was so great that I literally listened to it on repeat for an hour and a half while I worked to clean the gym where I have a part-time job. The song is called Sons and Daughters by Iron Bell Music. The entire song is amazing, but the bridge is the part that kept hitting me the hardest for some reason:
I sought you/You were lost/You were worth the cost
Can we really and truly ever understand the depth of our worth in the eyes of God, or the cost He paid because of the worth He sees in us, or how intense His love for us is that He would literally leave the 99 to seek out the one lost sheep? I don’t know about you, but I’m not sure that I ever will.
I asked God to show me why I was so drawn to this song, and while on my knees scrubbing a shower in the women’s bathroom, I nearly came to tears as He revealed the reason.
The reason for the song’s affect on me? Well, it’s related to a whole bunch of feeling stuff that I still at times have a hard time understanding. You see, feelings are weird to me. I have a hard time pinpointing what I am feeling when I feel it, which makes it difficult at times to understand why I’m acting the way I’m acting or doing the things I’m doing – because if I’m honest, most of my actions lately have been the result of emotional reactions. After some time reflecting on my behavior of late (which has not been good at all), and inviting Holy Spirit into my situation and asking Him to help me and show me the things I need to see, I think I’ve figured out some of the emotional weirdness going on inside of me, including what exactly I’ve been feeling and why.
With all of that said, I’m sure the burning question inside of you right now is what did I have for dinner last night, right?
Ha! Okay, okay… no, you want to know what feelings I’ve been experiencing, and what’s been going on. Well, brace yourself because it’s a pretty intense list, but I’ll sum up the feeling part with these few right here:
Abandoned. Lost. Alone. Unloved. Unworthy.
Now, let me clarify by saying none of these things have been in reference to God. I know in my head what I mean to Him. All of these negative emotions are related to specific circumstances of my life over the last few months and my insecurities – specifically, insecurities involving the people closest to me in life. With them, I have felt this way, not with God. But, the truth is that my feeling this way in reference to people is based in my (still) lack of understanding and believing how important and significant I am to God. In the unexplainable awesomeness of how God works, though, today He was using a simple song and a specific event that happened last year to show me some truth, and to help me understand the reasons why I have felt and acted the way I have… and how all of this works together for good.
Let’s start with the story from last year.
Something I haven’t shared before with anyone outside of the Race is that last year God told me to seek out a specific teammate of mine and to intentionally work to form a friendship with them.
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Side Note:
Admittedly, I’m a complicated person. I don’t think I realized how complicated exactly until the Race, and my personal complications came up a lot in the development of this relationship. It has never been easy to be close friends with me because… well, because I have never made it easy. I have always had this sick need to be needed, so in the past there has always been an expectation that I will be the fixer of your problems, but don’t expect for me to open up and be real and vulnerable with you, or to let you really get to know me. I also don’t initiate, so God asking me to be the initiator with this was already pushing it for me. I can name my closest friends on probably 3 fingers, and I would probably say that I have intentionally kept the worst parts of me hidden from all but 1 of them until AFTER the Race – because a lot has changed since then.
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I will not get into any specifics, but I will tell you that there were quite a few setbacks and struggles as this person and I tried to form a friendship over the course of the year. During one of our struggles in particular I actually told God I was done with it and didn’t want to work for the relationship anymore because the person wasn’t “worth it” to me. Granted, I was angry when I said this to Him, so I was being completely irrational, but that didn’t stop God from giving me a pretty hardcore rebuke. In that moment, I felt a very clear and intense rebuke from Holy Spirit. He said to me, “DON’T EVER call something unworthy that I have called worthy”.
It was a hard check in my spirit and I immediately repented and asked God to help me see the worth in this individual. To help me see them the way He sees them and I asked Him to show me His love for them so that it might help me love them better. And you know what? He did. An overwhelming love came inside of me… something I’ve never felt before. It was intense, made me want to laugh and cry all at the same time, and from that moment on I have yet to question this person’s, or anyone else’s worth again.
Over the course of the remaining 6 or 7 months of our trip our friendship continued to grow, but it also continued to be tested at times. And once more, toward the end of the 11 months, I found myself questioning God because of a new struggle that was hitting hard on one of my own insecurities – a fear of rejection.
During this final big struggle we had, I went to God again… this time not questioning the person’s worth at all because He clearly showed me their worth when He let me feel a portion of His love for them. This time instead of saying the person wasn’t worth it, I just told God that He must not have known what He was doing, and He definitely made a mistake when He asked me to be this individual’s friend. I begged Him to take away the love He gave me for them because I couldn’t handle feeling rejected. Clearly, I didn’t now how to be a proper friend for them because I was always messing up and causing conflict, so I told Him even though I know they’re worth fighting for, He was 100% wrong and picked the wrong teammate. Someone else would have done a much better job, and I was done. It was quitting time.
In my attempt to take control, I told Him that I knew better, and I knew the solution – the best way to love this person was going to be to run away from it all, so I needed Him to release me.
He wouldn’t, though. He told me there would be a lesson in all of it, and that literally EVERYTHING would be worth it in the end. After days of back and forth with Him, He went straight to the root with me and told me I needed to let go of my need for approval from man and to trust Him. He said it was time for me to find my security in Him alone, to learn to love unconditionally, to humble myself and apologize for my behavior and bad actions, and to fight to keep this thing going. Once again, He asked me to trust Him and assured me that He knows best.
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Side note 2:
I’m naturally a runner in situations like this. Meaning: Until recently, I have always avoided conflict like the plague. I hate it with a passion and would rather just avoid and ignore the issues than deal with them. Anytime I have ever had conflict with friends in the past, I have run away from it… usually resulting in the friendship ending. It’s all rooted in a fear of rejection, so God having me fight for something like this was not only stretching me out of my comfort zone, but also forcing me to tackle a nearly life-long fear.
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Suffice it to say we made up, and He was right – it was all worth it. I wouldn’t trade this person or our experiences together for anything in the world.
Why am I telling you this? And what does it have to do with the song?
We’re almost there, I promise! Be patient with me as I try to spell all of this out.
In my feelings of being unworthy, unloved and abandoned by the people around me right now, my behavior has been… well, it’s been pretty bad, actually. I’ve been childish, irresponsible, and, as I brace myself before another act of vulnerability as He continues to push me to humble myself – sinful. Over the course of the last month, in particular, I’ve done quite a few things I’m not proud of at all. I’ve fallen short in my freedom from pornography. My mom came home and found me drunk in my bed less than two weeks ago. Like a rebellious teenager I literally packed all of my things up and ran away from home, sleeping in my car and refusing to respond to anyone’s phone calls and texts when they tried to reach out to me. I got on a couple of dating apps and knowingly led a few random guys on just because I wanted to feel some sort of approval and acceptance and to get attention since I wasn’t getting it from the source I wanted the attention from.
Now, don’t worry. I didn’t do anything stupid with these guys other than give them my phone number and spend a significant amount of time flirting back and forth via text until I could tell it was about to reach a place where they were going to ask to meet up. At that point I would literally disappear and completely stop responding to all messages until they finally gave up. While this still may seem insignificant and innocent to some, the heart behind it is where the error falls.
Seriously, Denea? You’ve done all of this over the last month? Yes.
Why?
Because I’ve been seeking the wrong things to cope with my emotions and feelings instead of dealing with them and running to God and, as a wise friend pointed out to me recently, have forgotten that I need to invite His Holy Spirit into my situation to help guide me when I am weak and don’t know how to handle what’s going on around me. I’ve allowed myself to forget that it’s only through Him that we can find true joy and peace and contentment, and the secret to contentment is that we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us (not through me… Denea… and my own strength). I have forgotten that He is our one true source for everything and the only one who will never fail us. That His love is the only perfect love, and when I lose sight that His love is the only one I need and the only one that brings me security and comfort, I get disappointed by whatever source outside of Him that I am looking to for that security and comfort.
Wow, Denea. That sounds like a lot.
Well, in a sense it is. Please don’t mistake my honesty for shame, though. The same wise friend I mentioned above also recently reminded me that we are not called to walk in shame, and just because my actions have been bad it doesn’t mean that I, myself, am bad. Yes, my behavior has been bad and extreme. I have acted sinfully, and have been wrong A LOT lately, and I have no intention of demeaning or diminishing that. But now that I am seeing more clearly and seeking Him in the right way again, I am allowing conviction to bring about change as I invite Holy Spirit into my situation and allow Him to take the reigns where I am weak.
You see, God is always working things together for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purposes. And in truth, regardless of how I have acted, I love the Lord and know I am called for His purposes, so He is specifically working all things together for my good in this moment – and will continue to do so for the rest of my life. Over the last week or so as I’ve been earnestly reflecting on the last few months, and definitely the last few weeks, He has shown me some interesting things about myself – why I’ve been feeling the way I’ve been feeling, why I’ve been acting the way I’ve been acting, etc.
One thing, the thing that ties in with the song and the story has to do with how I receive love. I now know with complete certainty, because I asked Jesus to reveal it to me, that in order for me to feel loved, I need to feel like I am worthy of your time. I need to feel like you are fighting to be with me because you see me as important… even when I am at my worst.
This is how all of this ties in to the song and the story. I think God told me to seek out my friend… to be this person’s friend… because He knew that I would actually be someone who would fight for it even when/if it got tough. The reason I would fight is because that’s what I would want someone to do for me. For them to try. And if I make it difficult, intentionally or unintentionally – try harder and don’t give up. Make me feel like I am worthy of your time and effort. If you can do that, then I will know that you love me.
It sounds high maintenance and demanding, I know. It really does because it kind of is. So, in response to that, here’s where the song ties in.
I sought you/You were lost/You were worth the cost
As I listened to this song over and over and over again – literally for over an hour – all I kept hearing from God was that I am worth His time. And hearing Him say that is what nearly had me in tears while I was scrubbing a shower at work.
“Denea”, He said, “You’ve been seeking love and acceptance and approval from everything and everyone else except Me. But even though you’ve been lost, I’m still here seeking you. I’ve left the 99 for you because you are worth it to Me! My daughter, feel My pleasure toward you because you are My treasure. You are worth every bit of My time and effort. You are worth every ounce of My blood. You are worth fighting for, and I’m fighting for you right now. Stop looking to the left and the right, take My hand and come with Me, now. All of this has been in My plan all along. It’s time for you to finally see that I am all you need. You are not alone. You are not abandoned. You are not lost. You are not unloved. You are not unworthy. You are Mine. You have been sought and found. You are loved. You are worthy. You are… You are My treasure.”
So, just as He taught me to fight through my insecurities for a friendship that He said was worth it, the lesson in all of it is that I am way more worth His time and effort and love than any relationship that exists.
“Yes, I had you fight because I knew you would, and because it was worth it. But the bigger lesson was to teach you to see how much harder and passionately I fight for you every day, Denea… because you are worth it to Me. And that really is all you need.”
