I thought to myself:
“I know myself and I never would get this upset about something like this. Why is this affecting me so much?”
It wasn’t until a few days later that a memory came up from my 6th month on the race.
I was visiting a pastors church that we had met in South Africa and he got a prophecy for me:
He told me that healing was coming (along with a few others things that are not relevant to this blog).
At the time I gladly accepted it and believed it would come but I had no idea what it would entail.
Fast forward to this month, a few days after my birthday during a time spent with the team I was with for the month, I picked up a book from the shelf of books that they had where we were staying.
Uninvited Living Loved When You Feel Less Than, Lonely and Left Out was what the title read.
I had heard great things about this book and about the author but had never read it.
I read the first few chapters and didn’t get a whole lot out of it but I decided to keep reading anyways.
I then prayed that the Lord would speak to me through it and soon I was writing down whole paragraphs at a time in the notes section of my phone.
The book talked all about past hurts and wounds relating to rejection and how to pursue healing and forgiveness in these areas.
While reading the Lord brought up a specific memory from ten years ago that I had with my Dad.
For the sake of honoring my Dad and not painting him (or even myself) in a light that isn’t true about us and/or tied to our identities I am not going to share the specific memory.
As I sat with this memory I prayed to remember what had actually happened (because I had completely blocked it out of my mind after it happened 10 years ago, making it impossible to actually heal the wounds that came from it).
Slowly words, pictures and feelings came back and I began to write it all down.
And then I realized, this memory highlighted a deep feeling of rejection and being unwanted.
And as I continued to process I felt prompted to ask my Dad about it.
Would he even remember? Was he deeply hurt by me too? I was honestly a little scared to hear the answers, because this memory highlighted both of our pasts and us walking in our sinful flesh.
After asking him I found that he remembered this specific interaction between us as well and it was still affecting him too.
It made me wonder why we hadn’t talked about it before or why we never apologized to each other and reconciled in the past.
As I read further in the book it suggested to do a “corrective experience” with any memories related to rejection from your past. The exercise prompted you to write out the memories that came to mind and the dominating emotion that you felt on one side of a piece of paper and on the other side, the actual truths from the bible about yourself. This allows you to, in a way correct the memory in your mind to highlight the actual truths about yourself and not the feelings you felt in the moment.
So after I had more of a full picture of both of our sides I did.
And as I sat the Lord revealed that in this both of us desired the same thing. We both desired for greater belonging. But, what both of us actually felt was great rejection.
Isn’t it crazy that what we both desired was the same thing, yet we both completely missed communicating that at the time?
It’s crazy to me to think about how much feelings can dictate an experience, what we remember from a situation or what we actually believe about ourselves/others.
I admit, sometimes in my life I let feelings speak louder than the words of the Lord.
Sometimes I let the lies sit in the darkness instead of speaking them out loud into the light.
Sometimes I cover up a wound when it really needs to be open to be healed.
Sometimes I don’t choose what is good, right and true, But the Lord wants more for me.
The Lord promises more for me. When I think about all of this It is painful and I don’t always want to stare it dead in the face BUT the Lord is gracious in bringing up what is made for this time.
He knows what he has for us to walk through at this time and what he doesn’t.
And I am grateful that this was his specific timing for this healing to take place between my Dad and I.
What a blessing it is to follow a God who cares for us so deeply that he desires more for us. Who doesn’t want to leave us broken or hurting, but instead wants to heal us and bring restoration.
