Jan 28, 2016 ENTERING IN

I want to share what it looks like for me to “enter in”...

When I was a child, my faith was easy... believe everything my parents told me. It wasn`t  a hard thing to do. So... here is my story...

As a small ( well I am still small)  girl age 3, I wanted to help my mama in the strawberry patch... Mom says, you go and play, I don't want you to trample the strawberry plants....(unbeknownst to me a lie is planted) “you are not good enough” and in every comment even constructive criticism the lie that has been planted seems to be confirmed. Later in life it translates to how I lived my life. It comes out in comments I made about myself. “you can't do that” “you are not smart enough”, “how dumb can you get” or in defensive things like “I will show them I can make something of myself” In the work force, in ministry always believing “if I please him/her I will be loved, I will feel validated” and as I grow into a woman, I make choices although look good are based on a lie that I have believed. 

And then I meet Jesus. Not the God whom I was made to fear because “one day we will stand before God and be judged” or the God whom I am told will step on me if I make a mistake, or sin.

But Jesus.

As I get comfortable with Jesus, I start to ask Him, things like “where were you when” or “why am I feeling this way” I have opened the door a crack. Not waiting for an answer.... but as I allow Jesus to love me... I start to feel safe with Him, and I learn to ask the question without worry or fear... “Jesus what am I feeling?” and I have entered in.... I have entered into the “Holiest of Holies” I have come before the “Mercy Seat” of Christ...

I feel safe enough with my Father that – I know that nothing matters... right then and there besides the healing that He wants for me... So I take a risk, unlike one I have ever taken before. I lay my heart naked and bare before Him, scared and yet filled with the anticipation that although He knows, He is asking me for permission that He might invade and shed light into the deepest recesses of my heart. To reveal the lies that I have believed, to dispel them and pour truth into my heart. And when one thing at a time comes out, I see myself. My Father reveals to me who I really am in Him, How He sees me.

After all of that – I sit at my kitchen table, and every morning I have coffee with my best friend. I hold nothing back, We talk like there is no tomorrow. He has blessed me with the gift of conversation. And my longing to please others has shifted to be validated not by man but by my Creator, and He has already done that. So no more hiding,  I have learned to “Enter in” everyday.  He makes me cry, and He makes me laugh. He draws me in.  He has given me the gift of feeling... the gift to love deeply.

When we have entered in...Truly entered in, with or without trepidation, We sit, stand, kneel, lay prostrate before the Father who is on the mercy seat – and we come as we are, not as we think we need to or should be. He is waiting...