The last five days have been blissful here with my U Squad church in Nelspruit, South Africa. I have had many morning runs, beautiful hikes, sunrises, and times to worship on top of mountaintops. I have had so many incredible, Holy Spirit-led conversations with my wonderful squad-mates. I feel so renewed and refreshed and there is a peace in my heart unlike anything I’ve known. It didn’t come because I left our ministry in Bloemfontein and came to this hostel in a place that reminds me of California. It came because of Eden Christian Center of Hope; a place that was so challenging and so hard, but so incredibly growing for us as the Sonflower team and forming us into a family. It came because of what the Lord challenged me with there; revealing areas that still needed the healing that only He can give.
I left Eden and felt a lot of turmoil being worked out internally. While there, the Lord showed me woundings from my past that I was still holding onto; shame from circumstances that were holding me back and keeping me from living in the complete freedom He died on a cross to give me. When we got to Nelspruit, the first night together worshipping as a team and listening to Travis, our squad mentor, talk about vulnerability…God showed me the dark spots I was hiding from Him. I guess I just felt like they were scars I was supposed to bear because of decisions I had made in my life, but as my team wrapped their arms around me and caught my tears, I realized God wanted to dig those out and free me from them.
Walking through anything difficult in life, be it a death in the family, a car accident, divorce, medical challenges, just whatever it is that day, month or what have you, there is a process you must walk through. It is not unlike the “5 steps of grief.” There is denial, anger, bargaining, guilt and acceptance. I truly believed that I had gone through these steps (and many times over, if I’m being honest) in dealing with the divorce I went through five years ago. But what God has shown me over this last month on this incredible journey is that I was sitting in the guilt part and that guilt had crossed over into shame. Guilt is a feeling and shame is labeling it as our identity. I have been divorced and I had guilt that my marriage had failed, but when it crosses over into telling yourself you’re a failure, that is shame. I took it farther though and told myself I was no good and not worth loving. More shame. I held onto this and let it define who I was, and it was taking over. And I also realized the fear I was living in of ever having to experience that again, which is not completely irrational, was growing out of that shame. Why would anyone want to experience something that hurts over again? But it was to the point that I was holding my hand with a closed fist and saying, “I’ll do whatever you ask of me Lord, except let you into this part of me.” Which ultimately would have kept me from doing whatever He asked of me.
What I love most about all of this is that despite my tendency to run and hide, God waited. He is my Love who stands on the path He has set for me with His hand open and reaching out to me. Once I decide, and catch this: He doesn’t force me and He doesn’t tell me to join Him “if” or “when” I get it all figured out. No. He stands there with His arm outstretched and says, “Come now, my Beloved, and we’ll walk through this together.” And once I let go of the heavy burden I think I need to carry, He picks it up and carries it for me, as if it were just a feather. And that is what has happened this week here in Nelspruit. I am walking, hand in hand, with my Love. Walking in such an embrace denotes a mutual agreement between both parties and a commitment to go in the same direction and with an equal amount of determination. I take His hand and commit to this path He wishes to go on with me. My affection can never match that which He has towards me, but I look up and see the freedom and peace on His face and that is reflected onto mine.
The tattoo I got yesterday represents this path to freedom. I have, in no way, arrived. I am ever-constantly evolving and I will have to wake up and choose “in” everyday. The seeds flowing off the dandelion represent those hard things He has brought me through. They are parts of me and my story that I had to let go of and die to myself so God could use them and turn them into something beautiful. I am a new creation. I will step into this freedom and find the peace He gives, and in abundance.
“It is for freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm and do not let yourself be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.” (Galatians 5:1)
