This blog is a little more personal about me. Spiritually and emotionally.
I deal a lot with feelings. I’m a feeler.
I’ve felt very alone a lot of my life. Even though I have amazing friends and family that love me and are there for me. But my problem is really letting them into my struggles. I hate to bother others with my problems and often have too much pride to share them. I like to suppress how I feel and say it’s nothing, it doesn’t matter. But that helps nothing and doesn’t get rid of my struggles.
After a while those struggles pile up like a cluttered mess! But yet it’s organized too. The smallest offense or hurt feelings can bring one of the struggles or all of them back to the surface. And then I’m a mess trying to suppress them again.
One of my struggles I had as a child were thoughts. I struggled a lot with thoughts. Satan plagued me as a child. My mother was so helpful through this. She would pray with me and remind me that I was a child of God. I was saved at the age of 7 and I knew the Lord was living inside of me. That’s the only reason I could get past those thoughts. I would pray with my parents and read scripture and memorize scripture too. I have always had a sensitive spirit. So that is why I really struggle with the evil one because I can sense the presence. He hates God’s children and when we build God’s kingdom and he attacks us out of desperation to try and stop us.
My biggest problem as an adult is allowing others to come into this struggle because I don’t like to bother� others with this. The race has helped me realize the body needs each other in times of struggle. We aren’t supposed to struggle alone. Allowing others into my struggles is a new process I’m learning still. But living in close community like we do, makes it very hard to try to do anything alone, Including struggles.
I have a lot of lies built up that I’m needing to let go. These lies about my identity have blinded me so much that I can’t clearly see truths about my identity. I’m just now starting to see real truths about what God sees when He sees me. The hard process is seeing past the wall of lies that I’ve let the enemy build. I’m working towards tearing this wall down and it’s not easy. I’ve been living in a pit of lies for years now and haven’t even realized how deep it’s gotten until now. I’d like to say I’m living this Race out perfectly prepared as a missionary but there is so much God is still working on in my life. Jesus disciples weren’t past all their struggles when following Him. He continued to teach them how to live their lives for Him on the field. That is a huge part of this journey is learning about who God says I am and allowing Him to take off my blinders and lies so that I can fully follow Him and minister through what He’s continuing to teach me.
These lies I deal with cloud every word said around me or toward me, whether they are good words or not. Because I’ve believed these lies for so long they can turn every good thing said about me into something negative or just think that person said that just to be nice they don’t mean that. I think with my past struggles with battles from satan that I have learned to just deal with things myself and not allow others in. I just seek the Lord and His word to get me through those battles. But the Bible tells about the importance of the body of believers for a reason, we need each other. I don’t know exactly what tearing this wall down is going to look like or how long the process will be. I also wish it was just I see this wall now it’s gone, poof! It’s not going to be like that. It’s a pretty grounded wall that is going to have to be taken down cinder block by cinder block. Lies I am always being told, is that I am dumb, everyone thinks I’m dumb, people say nice things to make me feel better not because it’s true, I’m weak, I’m slow, I’m not loveable, I’m meant to be alone in life because no one really wants to get to know me, I’m annoying, all I do is anger people, my voice doesn’t matter or add up to anything, I’m selfish and self-centered, etc. These lies are handicapping. I get scared to live my life the way God made me, always on my tippy toes so that no one sees these things I believe to be true. It’s all always a cover so that I’m not seen how I see myself. Therefore I live a life constantly concerned with what others think and see in me because I see nothing good. When someone says they see good things in me I admire their thought for a minute but I don’t really believe it. I think to myself, where are they seeing these things? Because I can’t see past this wall.
The encouraging thing I’m learning is this wall doesn’t any longer need to stay blocking my vision. I will take this wall down with the help of the Lord and the continued help of my community. Maybe I’ll finally see who I am and what God sees in me. I bet I’ll like me once I really see me through what God sees. I will love me like He loves me and I’ll be able to love others like He loves them. When I finally do love me, imagine what God can do with that. I’m starting to already see truths about me. They are still slightly blocked by the huge wall. But now that I see this wall I can now start the process of removing it block by block.
Since I have been on the race I’ve struggled with community living because of the lies. I constantly pick up everything being said around me as it’s directed toward me somehow. And when something is said to me constructively in feedback not even harshly I process it with the lies and that’s all I see instead of allowing it to grow me. So I can’t grow because all I see is hopelessness. These lies just twist everything said so that I can’t see things in the true light. I’ve isolated myself a lot because I constantly am thinking they don’t hear me, they don’t see me, they don’t care about my feelings or input because it’s obviously wrong, because these are lies I’m believing about myself and others. The truth is my community is helping me grow past this, helping me realize all those are lies. That unless I let them into the struggle they can’t speak the truths into those lies. Because what I’m seeing is totally opposite of what they think and say because the wall immediately twists it.
All my life I’ve been stuck in this pit occasionally seeing past the wall but not believing the other side exists. My personality watches others closely and picks up on all the feelings around me. With this wall of lies you can imagine how destructive it has been to my personality. I have taught myself to not feel and therefore have become very numb and a person that just goes day to day without a passion. It used to be there and it’s time to get it back and let God tear this wall down with His truths. I’m tired of letting this wall stand and block me from being totally focused on God’s plan for me and clearly seeing others, it’s holding me back and I’m tired of letting it.
 I have faced a lot of spiritual battle lately. Not able to sleep, and feeling the presence of evil, he has brought up the struggle I had as a child that I spoke of in the beginning. I have combatted it with scripture and prayer. And let me tell you scripture is so powerful! I was brought to Psalm 46. I highly suggest reading that passage if you are struggling. The very amazing thing is that a note I read from home yesterday was based around Psalm 46. God is our ever-present help in trouble, our refuge and strength. And I invited my team into the struggle! That’s a big step for me. I will continue to take steps to let them in.
I’ve got a long road ahead and it isn’t always going to be lined with roses and beautiful things. Sometimes we have to walk through dry deserts to make us fully rely on our refuge and strength.
