As I have said many times, being home has not always been easy. One of the biggest adjustments was losing the community, the team that I had grown so close to. We spent 11 months learning how to lean on one another, how to trust one another with our weaknesses and rely on each other’s strengths.
As great as it is to reunite with family and friends, there was just something missing. We all have been in search of that fellowship of the spirit. Most people have never learned how to really go deep with another person, to be vulnerable and to trust. We all desperately need that, but few of us know how to do it. So here we are, back at home going through all of these transitions and changes without anybody to process it with us. Many of us are longing for that community where we know it is safe to pour out our hearts and lay our weakness out on the table, knowing our brothers and sisters will speak truth and life into our brokenness. I know that is what I needed.
That is why I came to Georgia. I know that God is not done with me yet. I still have some junk that needs to be cleaned out, and I need to be in a safe place where I can let down my guard and let God come in and renew me. This is not saying anything against my friends and family elsewhere. I know they all want to see me walk in freedom and strength, but the truth is that most of them have never learned how to be that kind of community. Our culture has largely failed to teach us how to be emotionally healthy.
Jesus didn’t just come to save us from eternal separation from God. Jesus came to set us free from bondage and to heal our broken hearts. But most of us are still walking around in bondage to sin with wounded hearts that keep us from being who God created us to be. We have never learned how to let Jesus heal us.
A big part of that process is allowing ourselves to grieve the things that have hurt us. Instead, we are taught to be strong and tough; to cover up our weakness and put on a brave face. We push all of those hurts deeper and deeper into our hearts where “nobody will ever see them”. That is a lie of course. That brokenness becomes evident in almost every area of our lives, but it may come in unidentifiable ways that we do not easily associate to the original wound.
When we pushthose emotions and hurts down, we begin to clog up our spirit. We become unable to experience joy, because we are so full of suppressed pain and sorrow. Essentially, we become dead inside. You may remember my story about Thailand, when I realized that I was unable to feel any emotion because I was so shutdown. My heart was dead from years of suppressed emotion.
God has been reawakening my heart little bits at a time. When we were in Mexico, during the first week of the race, I opened my heart to God and the dam broke. The well of suppressed emotions began pouring out. God had spoken to me in that moment that I had to cry all of the tears that I had never cried. When you push them down, they don’t go away. Somehow, all of those uncried tears from my childhood into adulthood had to come out.
God has been very merciful in allowing them to come in stages. I think if it all comes out at once, it would overwhelm me. So over the last two years I have gone through seasons of grieving. Last night God brought me to that place again.
Dr. Ron Walburn was here to speak to our trainees. He led a session on grieving, and I had missed this one during my own training camp because I was at the clinic that day. I have often wondered what I missed in that session, and here was my chance to sit in and listen. I immediately felt something stirring in me, but I tried to hold it back. The battle in my head sounded like this.”I’m supposed to be here for these trainees”, “this session isn’t about me, it is for them”, and all kinds of lies from the devil trying to keep me from engaging. But God gently whispered “Stop being a Martha, and just be a Mary. I am here for you, don’t deny me”. So I took a deep breath and said “Lord I give you permission to do this now if you want to” and immediately the tears began to flow.
I am not talking about tears streaming down my cheeks. I am talking about sobbing and convulsions and collapsing into a heaving mess on the floor. It’s not pretty, and it’s not fun, but God was in the middle of it. Raw emotion poured out of me for more than a few minutes, and it was glorious. It was miserable and fantastic all at the same time. I took Jesus hand and let Him lead me into the pain, the only place where He could bring healing.
I have to admit that I feel like crap today. I’m exhausted, my eyes look like I was stung by a bee or something, I have a massive headache and my neck is stiff from being so tense; but a huge weight is lifted from my spirit and I know that there is a new place cleared out for God to fill up with His love. So today is a good day, a victorious day. I am alive and I am secure in the arms of my savior.
