Debrief at the beginning of this month was rough for me. It was great too, don´t get me wrong. A lot of good came out of debrief, but it was rather tough too.
Going into debrief, I was dealing with a lot in my mind. Our squad leader, Josh, had talked to us about the prodigal son just a few nights prior to leaving Trujillo and in the days that followed, I was coming to realize that I didn´t truly see myelf as a Daughter of the King…but rather more of a servant. That I didn´t really understand the imenceness of His love and because of that, I wasn´t able to fully accept it. Great. I thought…where do I go from here?…and then came debrief.
So much happened at debrief and I wish I could tell you all of it. I´ll tell you what had the biggest impact on me though. I had a one-on-one with my wonderful squad coach, Betsy, early one morning. I won´t lie, I definitely was intimidated to talk to her and beat around the bush because I knew what she was probably going to ask me about….and part of me was nervous to talk about it with her. But what came out of that half hour conversation was SO much bigger than I thought it was.
Betsy recommended the book Spiritual Slavery to Spiritual Sonship to me and after being mind blown during our discussion, I immediately went and downloaded it, beginning to pour over this book. By the middle of chapter 1, I was already bawling. Great.
Here´s what I am discovering in my life. I have an orphan heart. Ya, I said that right. An orphan heart. That basically means (without going into too much detail- read the book) that I´ve felt…for a very long time…that I don´t belong. That I have to strive to be loved. That I could lose my identity if I do something wrong.
BIG REALIZATION!
As I sat reading this book, I read about the writer´s own strained relationship with his daughter, Sarah. (Oh good, more crying. His daughter´s name is my name. Wonderful). It got me thinking…and of course, started to make me cry even more.
My love language from the time I was little has always been quality time. When I was younger, my dad was on active duty in the Air Force and spent several months at a time on TDY at least twice that I remember. He was gone. Out of the country. For months at a time. And in my child brain and heart, I felt abandoned. Like a fatherless child. Like he didn´t love me- even though he still provided for me and all. I didn´t have my daddy right there to be- well, my daddy. And so even from that young of an age, I started to close my heart off to him because I had been hurt. And it didn´t feel good. I didn´t want to continue feeling that hurt. Thus, the orphaned heart….which continued to be maintained throughout my childhood and into my adult life.
I would strive to do better, to be stronger, to be perfect because my orphaned sense of thinking believed that would get him to love me- to want to spend time with me. An orphan heart thinks it has to strive to belong.
I continued to trust my dad to take care of me and provide for my needs. I trusted him on a surface level relationship, but I didn´t trust him when it came to matters of deep personal communication and intimacy. I lost the ability to hold my heart open to my dad.
Each day I was reading more and more of this book..each time realizing how deeply rooted my orphan heart was rooted. And then I made the connection between what I was discovering and what I had been feeling that night Josh spoke about sonship. Not only have I been living with an orphan heart in my relationship with my dad, I´ve been doing the same thing with God.
I´ve literally built up a wall around part of my heart for fear that I would be hurt by God. Which is ridiculous! But I couldn´t understand my role as a Daughter of the King when I didn´t even see myself as a true daughter of my own earthly father. I´d shut God´s role for me out, terrified of being hurt. Instead, I was living as more of a servant…doing things for God, but not allowing Him to be my Father and for me to be His Daughter.
And the puzzle was starting to make sense!
So now I´m on the road to breaking down the walls I´ve built around my heart. I´m on my way to believing I am His Daughter and not just His servant. To displace this orphaned heart of mine and receive a heart of Daughtership. I´m waking up early each morning to pour over His word, to remind myself out loud that I am a Daughter of the Most High, and to speak out the truth of my identity in Him. And I´ll continueto do it until I believe it. I´m tired of living a life as an orphan.
Romans 8:15-16
"For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God"
