Well it’s been a month in the Philippines and God has been teaching me so much and I want to share it with you.
Pain: Learning that God feels our pain is one of the most important things I’ve learned so far. GOD doesn’t leave you or abandon you in a hard time he sticks it out with you he feels the pain you go through he doesn’t want you to be sad or feel alone or feel neglected so he sticks it out and feels the same pain you are feeling. How weird is that, anytime I thought about something bad that happened I thought what the heck God why did you let this happen… you left me. Well he didn’t. No matter how many times I got mad at him he stayed with me. He felt the depression, the abuse, he feels it all.
Attention: Most humans and myself included strive for attention and for people to like us. So we sometimes lie and do stupid things that we normally wouldn’t do. Or go out of our way out of our true self to try and be someone else just to get the attention from someone. Learning that I don’t need to strive for other people’s attention because God gives me all the love and attention he has everyday is a hard lesson to learn. Asking God to open my heart and let myself feel the love and affection he has for me has been difficult. All I want to do is get immediate responses of affection or attention but God has taken that away from me, whenever I strive for attention he literally takes away the opportunity because he knows I know I won’t be fully satisfied in the end with the attention I received from another human. The only attention and affection that can fill me completely up is God’s. His isn’t immediate either. I have been working through the need for attention and working with God to realize how much love he really has to offer me. When my heart is fully prepared he will show me.
Worthy: One night during worship I was praying for God to show me a way to feel his love and change my heart. After about a minute on my knees praying.. and God speaks this over me, “Taylor you are worthy of my love. You are a beloved daughter of mine.” So obviously I start bawling my eyes out. I left the room after curling up into a ball on the floor and part of my teammates lap and was able to be sort of alone with God while I thanked him for speaking this over me. I didn’t know what to think, I was still in awe of what had just happened. I had been spoken to by God before but only in prayer over others or a small word that I had been praying about would be confirmed for me. This was a huge thing for me. I was later journaling about it and God just said I love you as much as I love the people that have hurt you. Now at this point I’m thinking but wait they hurt me so badly yet you love them the same? And that’s when I realized I needed to have a couple conversations with people who had hurt me and let them know that God was working on my heart and he still is and always will be working on my heart.
Love: Another night of small worship with my team God spoke to me again about love. I wrote down what I heard… “Taylor open up your heart and love me back says the Lord. I can only love you as much as you love yourself.”
Okay whhhaaaaaatttttt God you must be crazy…nope he’s serious. I can’t be fully loved by him until I love myself for the way I am and for who I am.
