These first 2 months on the race have been enormous in my personal growth. God has been bringing me through a hard yet beautiful process. I knew I could not blog until this process came to completion. Even so, it is hard even to find the right words to express it justly.
I have been through a lot, as everyone has .Through my life I have had many spears pierce my heart. Spears of hurt, rejection, abandonment, humility, loss.. Many of these spears pierced by other people..but most spears I pierced into myself.
It hurts when a spear darts into your heart. We have all experienced it. The sadness, anger, resentment, bitterness.. Your heart aches for a while.. but then you realize that you slowly start to feel better. You all know what I mean.
I've thought of my heart as perfectly fine. Yeah i've been hurt..been through some crap…made some bad terrible decisions. But that is in the past ..I'm fine now and have my eyes set on my bright future ahead. I'm over all that stuff anyway..no need to dig into the past–its in the past. Thats perfectly fine..right.
Wrong.
The spears are still there.
& even worse, your heart gets used to the spears.
Your heart becomes hardened so it can stop those sharp tips from wiggling around and causing continued pain.
and to protect itself from more spears piercing it.
In Guatemala I realized I had a hard heart filled with spears. But had no idea what these spears were, let alone know how to take them out.
But then God started wiggling each spear. One by one, by one, by one.
Wiggle-wiggle: Ouch.. didn't know those words that person said still hurt me.
Wiggle-wiggle: Ouch.. didn't know shame from that past decision was still haunting me.
Wiggle-wiggle: Ouch.. didn't know I was still so senisitve to that bad exeperience
Wiggle-ouch-wiggle-ouch-wiggle wiggle -ouch ouch.
Okay I get it, gotta get these spears out now- for good.
I digged deep into my past, finding the root of every spear. EVERY SPEAR. The big fat spears, and the spears so tiny I didn't even think they were worth digging out. I realized how each numbing spear was effecting me today.They revealed how I don't really trust people to love me. How I dont trust authority figures. How I don't believe i'm good nor worthy enough to be trusted. How even though I have enormous joy, I have high thick walls to protect it.
THUS.. my process began
I set up my hammock overlooking the Guatemalan mountains.
I opened my World Race Journal.
& started writing names on the top of each page.
Family, friends, authority figures, anyone who has caused me any ounce of negative feeling.
I made a list of each and every big and little thing that person did that hurt me.
The lists were long, the longest being the page I made for myself.
By the time I finished I was pissed and angry, while feeling my spears wiggling violently around in my heart– spears I haden't felt in years- spears I didnt even know that were there . Little did I know.. what I was feeling was my spears getting looser.
It was a couple weeks .. once we moved from Guatemala to Honduras, when I finally came back to the pages. All the feelings of the past 20 years fresh and raw.
I walked up to an awesome altar-like rock, and knelt down on my knees.
I opened up my World Race Journal again..
and I dug into each and every word the pages contained, forgiving every thing under each persons name.
I did not move on until I felt full-hearted forgiveness. At the end of each person I would say a prayer …
"God, have me see Jesus' blood run down these pages,
and make this page ,filled with my anger and hurt ,turn into a page of white shining glory.
Give me new eyes to see this person as you see them
Give me new ears to hear this person with paitience
Give me a new mouth to talk to this person with a new grace and gentleness.
Give me a new heart for this person
I forgive them, and hold nothing against them , as you have whiped me clean"
I also wrote long letters to the people i've wronged – mostly being my parents. I asked bluntly for forgivness for anything and everything I could think of that I did to them . This is a whole other story in itself. My shame, and regret, and my greedy-selfish-dirty-little heart brought to the surface for them to remember again. But grace, gentleness, forgiveness and redemption came in their replies.
After dragging everything into the Light , and setting all my wrong doings and the wrongs against me at His feet I prayed..
"God, take this heart full of anger, distain, abandonment, loss, shame, regret, and selfishness and replace in me a new heart filled with Your love, Your joy, Your forgiveness, Your redemption,Your Spirit"
And He did.
In that moment I felt my spears being pulled out of my heart…
and into those deep holes God poured in His love.
His joy.
His patience.
His acceptance.
His identity.
His purpose.
His purity.
His glory.
His freedom.
I wept. I bawled. I was feeling a physical change in my body, my mind, my spirit, my heart. We will just say many little salty drops of redemption fell at fast rates from my eye balls.
But it wasn't over.. As this divine appotinment was ending God said ..
"Now pick up your spears…and fight for me.."
I stood up from that rock. With a bigger, warmer, stronger beating heart-
and a hand full of blood stained spears, I walked away from that rock..and left forever changed.
A warrior.
