This blog starts all the way back in Malaysia when the ministry for the month was working in the Penang House of Prayer (PenHOP). While at PenHOP I started to write letters to people in my life and those that were no longer in my life. This is the month I wrote the letter to my soul tie, but I also wrote letters to God, and a few to my Dad. One that I wrote was:
Dear Dad,
I miss you…I still cry at the thought of you…I don’t know if that’s normal or okay. This year Christmas is really hard because I don’t have Mom or Ben. I know you are here with me, but I want you physically in my arms. You were in my dream again last night. I really hate that dream because when I wake up I miss you even more. Dad…Dad….Daddy, how I long for the day that I get to call you daddy again. I need you my comfort zone. I need my heart to be full. I wish I didn’t always feel so alone.
Dad please, I miss you.
After writing this letter I listened for God, I wanted to hear what God had to tell me/show me. And what he showed me was myself standing in a brick house with only little windows to see out of. This vision I interpreted t as God telling me that I have blinded myself to all the walls that I have built up around me, I am blind to them because I stare out the little windows and never see the walls. The walls were built around the fact that I have never grieved the death of my dad. So, I prayed hard and I mean hard. I prayed every day that God would walk me through the process of grieving my dad, and He told me He would in His time. So, I sat back patiently for the next two months.
Then in Zimbabwe I had the epiphany with reading the book of Ruth. (you can read all about it in my last blog here) About how I carried a lot of bitterness towards God for my dad’s death.
I thought ok God we started this process….or was that the whole process as I walked into Zambia. Then once in Zambia and made my way to our second ministry site for the month (Kasama), I found out we were going to a funeral of a man that was the father of a girl in 7th grade at the school we were ministering at. I did not completely process what God had in store for me with this funeral….and I’ll get to that in a second, but first I want to discuss all the spiritual warfare I have been going through this month.
- On the second day of being in Zambia I hit my head HARD on a window at our house in Chongwe. I was sitting under it reading my bible, then stood up fast and hit my head on the windows edge. I ended up getting 4 stitches in my head….he had to SHAVE PART OF ME HEAD! (it was a very traumatic experience for me because my mom always told me to never shave my head)….you can read more of this story here.
- I have been fighting allergies here in Kasama.
- At the school a man who I will call Tom called me fat, then called me his gf, and just overall gives me terrible vibes and uncomfortable looks. He has made me very uncomfortable at ministry and I try to avoid him at all costs. He always seems to show up when I am spiritually at my highest at school.
- Side note…this man can’t remember my name and keeps calling me Aslan….not a bad name just not even close to Leslie.
- The devil has also tried to attack me in my dreams. I have had dreams where people I love call me fat and tell me I am unlovable because of how fat I am. Other dreams of my soul-tie (that I have not thought of since posting my letter saying bye to him in a previous blog, here) getting engaged and me being jealous of his fiancé and wanting to be her.
With all this spiritual warfare, I have had a hard time sleeping, enjoying ministry, and just being happy. I know the devil is attacking me because I am succeeding in my walk with Christ and I am growing closer to him. The devil wants me to stay in my brick house built of bitterness because he can use it against me, but I want to take a sledge hammer to it and that sledge hammer was an African funeral.
The funeral…..this funeral took me and turned me upside down. The funeral was after school, so my team and I walked with the entire 7th grade class to the house of the grieving family. Once there the students sang songs for the family and then we prayed for them and sat in a moment of silence for the deceased before singing and then leaving the home…this is logistically what happened at the funeral.
But for me it went a little more like this.
I walked into the home and saw a little girl crying her eyes out for her dad that she would not see again here on earth and instantly I saw her as my brother. I instantly remembered seeing my 7th grade brother cry tears of a boy who just became the man of the house. I could see my brother questioning why a God that is so great doing something so terrible. I saw my brother building walls and shutting down. I saw my brother give up on everything.
I looked at the grieving widow/the mom trying to be strong for her kids and she instantly changed into my mom. I saw my mom holding back tears so that my brother and I would think everything would be ok. I could see my mom crying as she lost her husband and father to her children. I watched as she mourned a man that she thought she would grow old with and raise her children with. I watched as she wondered what we had done to deserve this loss.
I looked at the grieving grandma confused by the fact that a mother should never have to bury their child and she turned into my Grammy. I flashed back to my Grammy mourning the loss of her son. The look in her eyes of confusion and anger with God of why she must bury her son when she is an old lady (her words not mine).
Then in the corner God shows me, me at 9 sitting in a corner and building my house of bricks around me. I saw myself saying no one will ever be able to hurt me like this again as I built the house. I built the house out of bricks made of anger, sadness, confusion, and pain; this all was under a roof of bitterness, that the devil helped me lay over the next 17 years. I saw myself closing people out because all they would do is hurt me. I saw myself closing myself away from God because he had hurt me.
So here I am sitting at this funeral of a girl I have never met crying my eyes out. My teammates of course know that I have been walking with God through the process of grieving my Dad, so they were understanding and are encouraging me to continue to walk through these emotions and to not just shove them back down. They ask me all the time how I am doing and make sure I am continuing my grieving process and not shoving it to the side.
This is a hard process. It’s hard because I have suppressed these feelings and emotions for 17 years. I have not wanted to deal with the death of my dad, but I know I want a deep relationship with God and those around me. I want to have total faith and love and joy in God. I know I will never have that until I fully demolish this brick house, so that I can walk in freedom with our Lord God almighty for eternity.
Soooooooo this blog is where I am at…it is not in a pretty little bow (at least not yet) because this is still a process that I am walking through and I promise to keep y’all updated on it.
