Excuses…
For God is working in you, giving you desire and the power to do what He pleases. Our lives are precious to Him. Don’t excuse yourself by saying “I Don’t know”. For God understands all hearts, and He sees you.
A lot of the time I tend to make excuses for allowing myself to stay where I am and not move or challenge myself. Why? Because sometimes it’s just easier to stay and complain, be sad, and act like a victim instead of exposing yourself to be vulnerable and transparent where its uncomfortable.
I’m done making excuses!
Worry and Fear
Worry and Fear are themes throughout my walk with the Lord that keep coming up over and over again. Roots that I have that need to be up rooted. Every time I uproot one thing there’s another that needs to be dealt with. The Lord brings back these things at certain moments or seasons in my life to work through. Timing really is important! Each circumstance different and unique. It’s a very scary thing to face these things constantly because I never know what they are until I’m in the moment. However, I have hope that once these things begin to be uprooted they will have less control over me and the fight against these things will be easier to identify and fight through. Each time going deeper and revealing more of Gods freedom in it. It’s like releasing the weighted sand bags on a hot air balloon in order for it to go higher.
“Through the mountains be shaken and the hills be removed, yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken nor my covenant of peace be removed, says the Lord, who has compassion on me.”
This month I have been working through forgiveness and anger. I have worked through these feeling before with certain areas in my life that I have experienced and seen and I have healed from them. However, starting month 3 the Lord brought up something new inside me that I had not known that was weighting me down. A weight that I had picked up without knowing it.
Dreams
The night before our travel day leaving China to Kazakhstan I had a bad dream about some extended family members who have hurt my family deeply in the past. It was frightening in the sense that they have always been far away but in my dream, they came and found my family threatening our joy and peace. I was angry and wanted to protect my family at all costs. Resulting in me thinking of how I can get revenge on what they had done. In my dream, they tried provoking me. At first, I managed to hold in my fear, worry, and anger. Later on, though in my dream I was alone and did not feel safe and all I wished for in that moment was that my brother was there with me. I’m not sure where I am. I’m surrounded by windows in an open space and I feel vulnerable and unsafe. Then I see a certain family member barge in through the door yelling at me and instead of cowering I am filled with anger and yell back and unload everything that I have bottled up for years giving them a piece of my mind and push them out threatening them to leave my family alone and lock the door behind me. They leave and I’m shaking with the adrenalin leaving my body leaving me weak. I start walking back when I remember theirs another door I forgot to lock then I hear a bang against the window it scares me and I see them banging on the window very angrily. On their way getting closer to the other door. Before trying to run and lock the door they walk in coming towards me and I am paralyzed with fear. I begin yelling for help for my brother, dad, and mother and as soon as they get close to me I wake up.
After having this dream, I kept getting hit with memory after memory of where I have been disappointed, intimidated, or scared of a man. Which flared up so many emotions coming into month 3. I was very angry but also scared. After crying it out, talking it through, and processing it with the Lord I realized I had to work through forgiveness with all the people who have hurt me in the past and let go of the weight that I have held on to for so long. Letting it take power over my life and allowing fear to dictate most of my life. A form of that fear was generational sin which I feared greatly wanting to stop it.
I have always been great at hiding this part of me keeping tucked away and pretending I was ok. Putting on a mask and hiding it thinking that with time I would get over it. The Lord however had other plans this month for me. This month we have been teaching English to adults and its more of conversational classes and spending time with students and developing relationships with them. The Lord this month challenged me with learning how to love these students the way He loves me and sees me. Choosing to see the good in them the way the Lord sees the good in me. Especially learning how to be a good sister to my fellow brothers in Christ and the men I would be spending time with this month. Learning how to trust them and not be afraid of them. To not feel anger and expect disappointment in their actions but hold on to joy daily. Learning not to fall in to the habit of expecting the worst but to expect the best and helping build them up instead of down. It’s a big feat however it’s still a long road to complete healing and forgiveness. The Lord has laid out the practices it’s my job now to trust and follow his direction.
