Losing Myself "Again"

Losing myself again

Today as I sit here... I wonder how it happened "again"... I feel like have lost myself again, like I have let life consume me, How do I balance it all? How do I live one day at a time. I moved this year and my house and life feel completely out of sync and chaotic.

Jesus please give me peace in this chaos - I have no inspiration to write. I know that I am supposed to write a book. And I really want to. but I don't know where to start, and instead of trusting God I just sit here frozen. filling my life up with other things. Band aids - distractions from the journey that God has for me. I know I heard Him say "write a book"  so why is it that I just can't seem to find the words to start.. to share myself.

And the words I heard are " you are afraid of both failing and succeeding" and this book isn't for anyone but Him... So I want to write - but there is this show on Netflix and I am all caught up in the drama of it.... and so the story goes. And so the time wastes away.

"Forgiving the unforgivable" the person that was supposed to be my best friend wasn't. And with all the lies and deceit I don't know how to forgive right now. and maybe I feel justified in not forgiving. but in all of that I miss her so much. we were like sisters or so I thought - I had heard things but I decided not to look through the glasses of her past. But I wish I had guarded my heart... but what of being brave enough to be vulnerable. God why couldn't I see my reaction to the deceit. So I shared some things that she didn't want to have shared. And in finding out instead of working through things - and talking to me - the venom poured from her heart in a text to me. And she cut me completely from her life. And I guess the unwillingness to work things through hurts the most. I thought I meant something to her. It really hurts to know that she doesn't value me enough to work things through. And she never has, and the thing is others that she has been friends with in the past warned me about this. "She will throw you under the bus Martha" they said. "she just uses people" the only reason she is your friend is for what she can get from it. when she has no one in her life she needs you but as soon as there is a guy in her life she will ditch you" but I didn't want to see it. I didn't want to believe it. I am not sure where in her life it started that she needed to start protecting herself- what she did that she had to make herself feel better so that she couldn't feel the pain of her choices, and yet the choices haven't changed at all.

Jesus....Please show show her that despite all of her life choices that you love her.  Jesus please show me how to live from the bottom up... from my heart and soul to my head. Not from my head to my heart. Lord as You call me to walk on the ocean, I choose to believe that the water will hold me up.

The Chair with the Three Black Buttons

The Chair with the Three Black Buttons

I sit here on my sofa, gazing across the living room, a friend had dropped by earlier and we talked about getting off the wheel, the cycle that so many of us find ourselves on.  With being OK with or without others in our lives, it has been a year of learning, of growth, but the real revelation came today.

“You are still on the wheel, she said, you wouldn’t be talking about it, you wouldn’t be reasoning with it if you weren’t.

 As I heard myself arguing with her I knew that I was.  She left, and the house was quite.  My mind was not, there seemed to be noise everywhere and none of it made any sense.  I sat down on my couch and closed my eyes and determinedly quieted my mind.  As I opened my eyes and my mind, and my heart, I saw the chair across the room, and noticed that it only had three black buttons.  There was a divot in the fabric with the fourth button was missing. Then I heard His voice… “You have let me into every area of your life, but that one.”  He used that missing black button to show me all that follows.

I asked Papa, where all of this was coming from, the fear, and anxiety I knew it was my ego. A few things came into view as I closed my eyes and prayed.  I asked God to show me “why do I feel so stuck?” Why does it feel like I can not get out of this perpetual cycle that I am in?  Picture after picture travelled through my mind, some in focus and some not. Pictures of mostly men that had come and gone from my life, because I was struggling with the most recent break up, which was two years ago.  And why is it so hard to let go.  God used that to show me the root of my pain.

God:  “it isn’t him, it is all men that you seek the approval of, because you feel like you never got the approval of your dad, that you so deeply desired, remember when you worked for him, the only words that you seem to remember are “how dumb can you get” I know that you worked through that, I know that you know that you are smart.”

So what was it that was still blocking my path to getting and staying off the wheel, out of the cycle that seemly had become my life.  I kept my mind and my heart completely open, and allowed the light to shine around the innermost part of me like a flashlight lighting the corners of my soul that seemed dark and broken.

2 affairs in the first 10 years of my marriage, divorced for 5 and now 21 years later, God wants to open my eyes and heal my heart.  And I am ready.  My dad had passed on about 17 years ago. But never forgave me.  It seemed to me that he still didn’t approve.  As he lay dying in the hospital I watched him choose my then husband over me, his daughter  and I so much wanted him to approve of me.

I drew a blank when I thought about why – If I could accept that God loved me, that He thought I was beautiful, that he forgave me, for all my sin,  why was it then that I couldn’t seem to give Him permission to approve of me? 

I sat there in a puddle of tears, and I forgave my earthly father,  my ex husband, but mostly myself for not allowing God to approve of me.

I closed my eyes and I saw all the ways that God approved of me,   the lie that I believed was that my dad didn’t approve, a lie that the enemy planted a long time ago.  Then I asked “what is the truth Jesus?”  And He replied “You are Whole”.  

 Now as I sit across from the chair with the three black buttons, it is a significant reminder to allow God permission to access the deepest part of who I am.   It tells a part of a story, my story.  

We all have spaces in our souls, our hearts, in which we don’t believe that we are worthy of Papa’s approval or for Him to be a part of that place in our lives.  But that is what He wants.  He is asking for permission to tell you that “You are Whole”