The Shame Train- Genesis 3

I have joined a cohort called the Freedom Academy- I am enthusiastic as I look forward to the many hours I will spend absorbing the wisdom that Freedom Center OC has to offer. This class will begin in the Fall and run through December, so it is my hope that what I learn in this small cohort will pair quite nicely with my studies at school. It is my hope to use such tools to counsel other victims of what I choose here to call shame abuse.

In order to get a head start and lead the way of learning and knowing (as a Type One on the Enneagram will do) I determined to dive into any book they might suggest as a resource for personal growth and preparation.

To begin this summer season of “waiting” (as I am waiting on my official acceptance into Talbot Seminary, God willing, and then I will wait for school to actually start in the Fall), I picked up the book called The Wounded Heart by Dr. Dan B. Allender and I headed out on the journey with naive expectancy.

The impact of this read was unexpectedly powerful and I found myself stumbling along the tracks of unfamiliar territory. I had to jump back and allow the shame train to pass by before I could reorient myself and gather my wits to continue on.

On page 62 is where I first met the idea that shame is like pain- it indicates a problem which is not the suffering itself, but a deep wound which needs healing. Dr. Allender writes these words in summary of Genesis 3: 12 which roused my anger upon reception:

“Imagine telling the Lord God, ‘Don’t blame me. It’s not my fault; You made [insert name your enemy here]. If You had not created [him or her], then I would not be in this mess. It’s ultimately a failure of Your creation. You, God, and that [person] You made are the cause of [my] fall.”

Allender goes on to suggest that the enemy for all of us is not that person or people who have wronged and hurt us, but the enemy is sin and shame itself.

How dare it be suggested that the things of which I am a legitimate victim are actually a revelation of my own independent broken separation from God?! Excuse me? I am the victim in my story, not the sinner!

Anger! Shame!

Be still, oh my soul, and listen.

What is shame abuse? It is when we allow shame to dictate our present separation from God and therefore ensure our future status as a victim of such disparity. 

So I came here today to hash out why this page of the book elicited such anger from within me. I want to grapple with it until I see my God standing victorious in very center of the aftermath of all my emotions.

Here is how I will step back and reflect-

As I stood with my children beside a roaring train last week, it was with both delight and terror that we felt the air rushing by as the heavy metal clanked and the track bowed and hissed with the weight and heat of their rushing burden.

God spoke to me through my son as we stood waiting for some simple Saturday evening fun, to see a couple trains pass by us there at the Fullerton Train Station. We all noticed one particular homeless man because he stole our leftovers from where we had set them just two feet away. I told him to go ahead and do take it, and he continued to do so with a slurred sentence of thanks. We watched him hobble away on unsteady legs.

This homeless man we encountered while standing at the train station caused me to reflect on my own season of waiting. I am waiting for emotional healing and I am waiting for new direction.

I am waiting to understand who I am and what it is I am doing. I am waiting to settle into something definite. I am waiting until I can trust God with more.

And I think now of how the many feelings which rise up during this season in my life can become deadly to the soul when I don’t know how to approach them. This waiting can become a platform for transportation or numbing, depending upon my approach.

My initial thought upon seeing this drunken homeless man stealing his dinner was to simply judge- “he made very foolish choices and so he has ruined himself. His approach to life was bad.”

But the eyes of an innocent child do not see in black and white, which is why we are to come to our Father like little children in shades of gray.

“Mommy, why does that man do drugs?” This was my nine year old son.

What is this man’s story, really? Is his so different from my own? We both know shame, that worldwide epidemic of human brokenness and separation from God. We both long for our next spiritual meal while avoiding the dangers of incoming emotion.

“Well, his feelings are very sad because he has a hard life, and he doesn’t want to feel the hurt anymore. So he does drugs to turn off his feelings. He wants to hide from his sadness.” This was the best I could do for a quick answer to a loaded question.

“Is this because of sins, mommy?”

“Yes, son. This is because of sins. And it makes God very sad when we hide from our feelings, because then He cannot help us.”

Oh, but shame is an exception, if I am honest. I allow shame to enter in because it seems well-deserved and righteous. Shame points fingers and brings momentary retribution to the wounded soul.

After all, I’m a victim, so I have a right to feel shame or any other hurt emotion if I choose to!

…but to hide in shame is to become separated from the only One who can heal. This is the sin of shame which hurts nobody but ourselves.

“The capacity to feel shame does not lead to change or a return to the Creator. It leads to the opposite attempt to hide behind a bush. The natural response of an autonomous (independent and self-reliant) heart is to hide behind fig leaves or any convenient bush.” –Dr. Allender

Don’t we all live in this space on some level within? Who hasn’t felt shame and wanted to run and hide from God and perhaps also the whole entire world? Those who cannot recall experiencing such a time are the most numb of all.

To be human is to feel ashamed. To be human is to be divine. So we must bravely enter the presence of God with both parts of our selves in order to be fully known and fully loved. As Allender eloquently writes,

"Man is an amalgamation of dignity and depravity, 

a glorious ruin."

When shame has had its way with us, we are left numb and our soul goes to sleep because it has been cut off from the lifesource of our true identity and divinity.

The aftermath of shame is a dizzying combination of intense downward pressure and helpless weakness.

We are all victims of shame abuse.

So each of us must know that Christ is there beside us offering a hand and asking that wonderful question with a loud voice and inquiring eyes as He checks his pocket-watch in earnest,

“Well, ya comin’?”

What is important is not where He is going, it’s deciding to get on. 

Board the shame train? 

Yes, because otherwise we will be stuck at the station for the rest of our lives, numbing ourselves to the pain with a bottle in a brown paper sack.

We can numb out our entire existence with cycles of living that make us “happy” because they are familiar, or we can choose to board one of those scary trains of powerful emotion and trust that He will help us navigate the journey.

In working through The Wounded Heart this week, I see an error in some of my reasoning about the past- I always believed that shame was its own entity, a thing to be felt helplessly or turned into a launching pad for either retaliation or personal victory.

I did not know it could be an indicator that I am in fact hiding from the One I thought I was actively pursuing.

I owe most of my story to shame- without it, I would never have had the momentum to step out and keep writing. Because what does not kill us makes us stronger- right??

…yet what does not kill us can also cause us to hide deeper from the truth, pushing it away and covering our wounds with numbing techniques that are familiar and well-worn, like a drunken homeless man beside dangerous tracks of busy human productivity.

So now I go into my week with a new thought- the feeling of shame is not a signal that someone committed a wrong, it is a sign that we are hiding from God. Let not these two be confused, as much as the enemy would like us to believe that shame begins and ends with offense and must be either drowned in or ignored.

In Genesis is the first story of shame, and it tells so much about the human condition-

Genesis 3:9-12 (NLT)

⁹ Then the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”

¹⁰ He replied, “I heard you walking in the garden, so I hid. I was afraid because I was naked.”

¹¹ “Who told you that you were naked?” the Lord God asked. “Have you eaten from the tree whose fruit I commanded you not to eat?”

¹² The man replied, “It was the woman you gave me who gave me the fruit, and I ate it.”

Here in the place of shame is where God’s presence is most tangible to the sinner- the air is thick with it.

Imagine yourself hiding from God behind a bush every time that you feel shame- actually, that is what you are in fact doing. This is what I have done countless times, too many to count. I have said many MANY times: ‘Don’t blame me. It’s not my fault; You made [this enemy of mine]. If You had not created [him or her], then I would not be in this mess. It’s ultimately a failure of Your creation. You, God, and that [person] You made are the cause of [my] fall.”

Sometimes, this very enemy is even my own self. For example, the school play which I forgot to attend because I wrote down the wrong date, so that no loved one was in the audience to cheer for him when my son was on stage.

Here comes the shame train. A classic case of shame abuse in my soul.

I hide from You, God, because I don't want You to see that I am broken and imperfect. I am ashamed only because I am separated from You, and I am separated from You only because I have chosen to hide.

Ah, shame, how I loathe you. This relationship must end, and so I board you cautiously and see where you take me from here, listening carefully to the words of the Conductor so I know exactly when to get off.

I am going to leave this platform of unbroken cycles of brokenness, and the tracks will lead me to a place where I can present my whole entire wounded self before God in open humility.

Emotions can become a freight train of power and momentum when we do not have proper perspective. And perhaps a runaway train might be a better description of what shame can feel like within the soul, as well as the damage that shame can do to the human spirit when it is either ignored or indulged.

Shame is death, which is why it was the original gateway in Genesis 3 for brokenness to enter our once-perfect world. So when we see the first signal which tells us that the freight train of shame is headed our way, the first instinct is to hide. As shame begets fear of what God might do if He saw who we really are, it arouses our impulse to barricade ourselves from the onslaught of emotion which appears from a distance to be a massive threat of unknown proportions.

“It’s coming, it’s coming! Look, Mama! There it is!”

We remember this loud train which careens down the tracks, as it has passed by many times before, and we know the routine because we are creatures of broken habits and fallen instincts. We live here at the station, never getting on to travel these tracks of big emotion because we are too busy numbing ourselves to how we truly feel.

We are the homeless vagabonds who wander around the train station begging for handouts and keeping a safe distance from the tracks. We don’t want to risk exposure to any potential futher injury, and we would never dream of getting on the train should it pull up to a groaning, slowing stop beside us. Not even the invitation of a friendly conductor could sway our determination to remain benched, small and ashamed. For perpetual brokenness is easy to live with when it is very familiar.

No, we continue to sit on the station bench, passively observing freight trains coming and going, keeping a safe margin between ourselves and the familiar locomotives which could either kill us or deliver us from this place where we are stuck. We opt instead for the bottle that sits in a paper sack beside us, the one that contains victimization, offense, accusation and a long list of wrongs done to us and through us.

We emotional vagabonds don’t ask for much, other than handouts that will keep us alive in order to continue the numbing process. There is a tiny part of us that knows we are waiting for something, but we have forgotten what that might be. Shame keeps us hidden from others, from ourselves, and most importantly, from God.

Most of us don’t even realize the effects of shame in our lives because we have lived so long with it that we have become accustomed and accepted it as quite normal. And to interrupt the homogeneous state of a life lived in shame is to upset the normalcy of the comfortably familiar.

Who wants a God that invites us to take up a cross and learn to die well? Only those who are ready to stop hiding and present their whole shameful self to the ministrations of the King.

And we will go to great lengths to maintain the homogeneous state of shame in which we dwell. And sometimes the reality of our pain takes momentous effort to cover up. Continues Dr. Allender: “Shame is a dreaded, deep-seated, long-held terror come true: what we have fear has actually come about. We’ve been found out.”

“Look, look, mommy! Here it comes!”

Shame steals our next meal while we are gazing into the distance, anticipating the next onslaught of emotion headed our way.

And this shame does not always have to be a giant monstrosity of power and speed, although it often is that. It can also be an inviting passenger train which whistles pleasantly and slows down to accommodate our weary burdens which we carry.

“Well, ya comin’?”

Remember, friends, as we learn this together: shame is not actually a sign that you or someone else has done something wrong. Shame is a sign that you are hiding from God.

The first time this was suggested to me I became angry. It boiled up and I sat with it for quite some time, quietly observing what this anger could mean.

I found that at the root of every offense, both mine and others, is a simple choice: hide from God or stand brokenly before Him.

I think the fires of refinement are hottest for those who do not understand what shame really means, which is why my heart has burned within me for so very long.

And so I come before my God today, peeking out from behind my hiding place, and I say this to Him:

“There is something You want me to understand, and I am closer than ever to perceiving it. There is something here about shame and enemies. Just as in Genesis, my shame is a sign that I am hiding from You. My shame points directly back to the only real enemies of my past- not the people that have hurt me, not the people I have hurt, but sin itself and the way it separates me from You. Shame is a force of power which has found access to me through the former intimate relationships with people to whom I was submissive and vulnerable- sin used them to gain easy access to my wounded soul. When I feel shame in thinking about that, it is not actually because of what has been done to me or what I have done in the past, but my shame is a sign that I am hiding from You. If I stood in Your presence, there would be no shame because it falls away in the light of Your grace. Teach me, Jesus, as you did with the Apostle Paul for the three years following his conversion.”

We need to put down the bottle that keeps us numb, board that train of runaway emotions and ride it to the next stop, where Jesus will meet us with a new identity in Him which no amount of human error can ever take from us.

Get up off that worn out bench beside the tracks where you watched the shame train come around again and again- board it with Him and leave your numbing agents behind.

Look, a train is pulling in even now, you can feel it shaking the ground beneath your feet…

Well, friend, are you coming?

 All Aboard!

Rebecca

~*~

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Lost And Not Found- When Healing Doesn't Come

My friends, may we bloom in the pruning as that which is lost reveals that which has been found...

I have noticed something about my blogs which is becoming a trend that turns out to have been true since the very beginning- the pieces I write which are specifically about what God is doing in the present moment in my life have the most readers. It’s not the big and grandiose formulations of ideas, or the generalized concepts and emotions which pour forth in my writing that gather the most listeners- if this was the case then my personal favorite, the piece I wrote about Turbulent Faith last year during a tumultuous period of my wounded journey would be the highest read blog.

But instead, it’s the simple pieces about what God is doing here, today, in the mundane and routine chapters of my story that gleans a greater audience and seem to have the most impact. And while I am certainly not here to amass fame or popularity (else I would not disclose my brokenness and mistakes to all of you), I am here to honor God by contributing to His Kingdom in some small way through the gift of writing about my tiny faith.

And so today I will offer a simple look at what God is doing within me this week.

One realization has struck me and stuck with me since several days ago, on a rare occasion when I was truly praying out my heart to God from a place of complete honesty and dependence upon Him.

The realization was this- I like to finish everything I start. I am a perfectionist, INFJ-T personality who naturally leaves no margin for error. I solve problems, I clean up messes, I fix what’s broken- yes, I always finish everything I start. I don't let go of something until it's perfectly complete, even if that simply means I won't stop thinking about it.

And as I lay there asking God to please bring my healing journey to completion now, please let this work be perfected in me today, He said:

“No. You may always finish everything you start, but this unfinished work I am doing in you is MY work. It’s Mine. And I am not going to heal all the broken pieces in this lifetime because it is the incomplete nature of the struggle that draws you closer to Me. This unfinished work is Mine and if I choose to leave some places unhealed, trust me because I know what I am doing. I am not going to fully heal you in this lifetime, my daughter, and I need you to invite Me to sit with you in that tension until it transforms you to rise above it.”

Some pieces of our broken past will not be healed in this lifetime. That’s a promise we can count on.

So what to do with this painful reality?

Well first I must nuance this by saying that I do not have a Father who hurts His children or causes pain- of this He is not capable because He is perfect love. But I do serve a King who puts our spiritual growth above all else, and sometimes this does cause a conflict of interest. When this happens, IF we are willing to cooperate with His refining work in us, THEN He will choose our transformation over our comfort. Such is the hard and drawn-out life of a disciple.

So now the story:

 This week my daughter came running into the house from the backyard, the dog close on her heels, fur flying everywhere as she exclaimed that something amazing had happened. She was ecstatic and exuberant and out of breath with joy. We all piled through the doorway to see her discovery.

There in the rosebed we beheld a single red rose blooming among the white ones, all connected to the same root on the same plant that had always produced white flowers since the time we moved here four years ago. This was not a slight hue of red, but a deep, rich dark and velvety red color that popped out from the bright white blooms all around it.

As we observed this phenomenon with curiosity, my daughter declared “God made this for me because my feelings were hurting.”

A week before this she had a birthday where we celebrated her six years of life together, and one of her favorite party decorations was a giant metallic balloon of the rarest kind of the ridiculously rare LOL dolls. After the party she took it outside and played for all of ten minutes before the weight slipped off the bottom of the string and it took flight before she knew what had happened. 

The joys of the birthday had turned into tears, and she wailed “ITS GOOONE!!!” as I came to console her in her room. I hardly had the heart to bear it with her. I was somewhat angry at God for not stopping it from flying away from this little child with simple desires.

After a week of grief and repeated nighttime prayers that God would please bring it back to her, the balloon had not returned and the hole remained in her joy as she looked back on that special day. And yet, in the simplest forms of childlike trust, she determined that this strange red rose which bloomed from the white bush must be an answer.

No, God is not going to heal the pain of loss, but He can use it to turn our eyes towards Him and teach us to see other blessings that we might otherwise have missed. What is gone may not return to us, but we can apply our childlike faith towards a posture of receiving something new and much more magical.

Of course my logical adult brain wanted to understand what was really going on with the roses, so I researched and found out that when a rose bush is pruned back “too far” it can bring a regrowth of the grafted root system from a heartier red rose plant which is sometimes used to produce stronger white roses. Normally you would not see any signs of the red rose plant which was grafted onto the white stalk, but cut too deep and it will bloom again and the truth will be told. These white roses could not survive without the hearty root system hidden at their base.

One article said: "The 'hue' of a rose may differ a tiny bit in extreme conditions (especially in searing heat), but roses don't completely change color. However, most roses are 'two plants in one'—the desired blooming variety on top, grafted to the rootstock of a very different and really tough rose below. If the top part of the graft dies, the rootstock takes over. Roses are much tougher plants in general than people seem to realize, and the varieties used for the rootstocks are almost indestructible."

I did not tell any of this to my daughter, because of course she was probably right and this red rose was not about facts or human logic but about the human soul and the divine Spirit. After all, you can explain away any miracle of God, even the Cross of Christ, as God will remain hidden in plain sight so that nobody is forced to know Him. 

But I contemplated this lesson for myself, in thinking about my prayer for emotional healing and asking God for deliverance from inner conflict. His response was "No", plain and simple. But what is He producing from that deep cutting in my soul? Well, as He prunes us down to the essence of who we really are, He reveals new growth that tells the truth about our origins. We are red royalty underneath, the hidden source of our purchased divinity.

We are really weak and broken human beings who have been grafted into the family of God so that we can flourish and grow and produce white and holy things.

But rest assured, our roots go deep down into the rich red of forgiveness and redemption. We would not be white if we did not adhere to the rosy hue of the Cross.

Cut deep enough into the depth of the human soul and you will find the truth. What was lost has not been found, and healing may not come, but there is a promise in the pruning.

Why won’t He bring that balloon back to my daughter down from the sky? The same reason He won’t take me up out of emotional tension and conflict- He is pruning us down to our essence, where the true power and strength is found. He is wicking away our false notions of independence and stubborn pride and revealing His Spirit working in us.

This unfinished work is His, and there is nothing we can do except allow the pruning and maintain the growing, up and up from the deep cuts which we thought might be our undoing.

The Savior is not found in the strength of human effort, but in the uplifted hands of a broken sinner.

And as we grow up from fear to relationship with Him, we will turn our hearts to the Son and open up to His Kingdom working in and through us in a way that accommodates the red blood of pain but also the bright white of victory.

Friends, I am so glad you have met with me here today. There is so much more I could try to say, but instead I will simply say this: If God is cutting away the things which you thought you needed to be a whole and happy human person, please know that you are not alone, and that from this pruning comes a harvest of blessings which our feeble human minds cannot fathom.

Some healing takes an entire lifetime and then an eternity after that, but keep your eyes out for ways that He is responding to your wants and meeting your needs.

Have faith like a child to say “God made this for me because He knows my feelings are hurt,” and rest in the place of tension with the assurance that He knows, He sees, and He is working in the pain as the source of all blessing.

When our resources are stripped away then we remember our humanity and realize that we are in fact rooted into Someone much stronger than ourselves.

Don’t be ashamed to let your red rose bloom out from among your white ones- it might just be that very thing which someone sees and then says, “God used you to acknowledge my pain today.”

Bloom bravely, my friends, and take pride in the broken places, because it is there where God is working to bring about divine revelation. The 'hue' of a person’s behaviors may differ a tiny bit in extreme conditions (especially in searing pain), but human beings don't completely change identity. However, all Christ followers are 'two identities in one'—the recognized blooming human being on top, grafted to the rootstock of a very different and really tough Being below. If the top part of the graft dies, the rootstock takes over. Jesus followers have much tougher faith in general than people seem to realize because the One used for their rootstocks is entirely indestructible.

This unfinished work is His, not yours. Turn your face up to the Son, let go and release it to Him, and watch your shame float away up, up, up into the sky, never to be seen again.

Then find that red rose which speaks of the foundation of all that is good even in the cutting and the pruning and the falling out and looking up- turn and see the red which mars the white and call yourself blessed. Because you are blessed. You are blessed. You are.

Thank you, dear reader, for meeting here with me. May we bloom in the pruning as what is irreparably lost reveals that we have been found by love.

With Gratitude,

Rebecca

~*~

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To read my story or

view my creative writing,

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Welcome Worry, Invite Jesus {A Margin Of Surrender}

This egg has been abandoned because of fear. It lies cold and dead, a memorial to all that could have been. It will never live to its potential because its mother fled away in fear from territorial attackers.

The enemy is always looking for ways to squelch our best intentions- this is why the Universe is always sending us countering messages of hope. But we must actively listen, because the opposition is loud and demanding while the gentle inner Voice will never squabble for our attention.

Who knew that hopes and dreams were such targets for oppression?

To run away from fear is to abandon your hopes and dreams to the clutches of a hard and broken world.

When you deny your emotions, it is like fleeing the nest egg of your hearts desires.

So now is the time to sit and be silent.

Listen. Take inventory of the emotion inside yourself.

What do you feel? What resides there in the hidden places of your soul?

Yes, there it is inside, deep down beneath the busy of the day- worry.

I see you, fear. I see you anxiety. Sit with me.

Perhaps this worry is an unwelcome guest, or maybe it is an old roommate. No matter- welcome it anyways.

It brings a whole host of cohorts- anxiety, fear, bitterness, anger, doubt.

Welcome worry?

Yes. Welcome it.

Allow worry to enter in and sit beside you. Say,

“Welcome, worry, please take a seat.

Thank you for being here, I acknowledge what you bring.

Although you cannot stay here for long, I invite you to dwell with me here.

Please, tell me what it is that you need.”

Always ask worry what it needs, because there is always a deeper longing that drove it to knock on your door.

I was once opposed to worry, and I denied it, stuffed it down and shut it out.

I said to myself, “No worry! Just stop worrying!”

But when I do this, worry finds other ways to get in- it sneaks in a window and surprises me from behind or haunts me from the shadows. It ruins my life if I don’t make space for it.

Worry takes many forms, which is why our very own Pastor Swamidass spoke about it from the pulpit-

How To Free Myself From The Weight Of Worry- Living On A Margin – Part 6.

This week I was worried about what would happen next on my journey to becoming a counselor. I was searching for validation from my Father as to what my next step should be.

I wanted to start in the Fall semester but I was worried about a confliction with an already-committed family trip. It would cause me to miss class for a full week of vacation, which is rather unacceptable when you are working with a committed attitude towards your M.Div. I debated pushing my start date out another 9 months, which seemed so very far away considering the fire burning in my heart.

And I worried.

“God,” I prayed, “I come before you with a new desire in my heart- I believe You put it there in Your loving kindness towards me. I want to go back to school for my Masters degree. I will not be afraid to trust You- I sense that this dream is not only in line with Your plan, it is what You have wanted for me for a long time.  You simply had to wait  for me to arrive at it in my own way, in my own time. Please, Father, can I have Your provision for this dream?”

Welcome, worry. 

Welcome, Jesus.

Sit with me here. Let’s all meet together.

I have made margin for both of you at the table of my soul.

“Father, I usually don’t ask for big picture items, but You put this desire within me for a reason. I thank You for bringing attention to the dream in my heart, to become a counselor and life-coach so that I can talk others through hard seasons and the worries of their own lives. Someday I want to have a little office somewhere, maybe in a church or a freedom center, where I can make this vocation a reality. God, I humbly ask for Your provision and support to move ahead into this dream for my life.”

Now Jesus is leaning over the table, meeting with my worry and communing with it. It won’t be long before my worry can let go of me, so that I can surrender it up to Him.

“I have never had a great aspiration that was all just for myself, so this feels foreign. I don’t know how to ask You this, Jesus, but here goes: Please send me affirmation with every step I take, so that I have the internal conviction that I am not alone and that You are working beside me. I need You at the center of this vision for my future. I want to do this work in Your name, for Your glory and for my joy. Amen.”

The Admissions Counselor smiles kindly and nods when I ask about my week vacation- she turns to look at her computer screen, clicks and scrolls while I wait, and then turns to me with these words which I will never forget-

“Well, it looks like the date of your upcoming vacation will coincide with the week when the entire school shuts down for a conference. There should not be a problem with those dates at all.”

Jesus.

Truly, I must be His favorite, because He shut down the entire campus just so I could take my vacation and also start school in the Fall. This is affirmation, not coincidence. Thank you, Jesus.

Worry has fled the room, and I breathe deep. It is just Jesus sitting beside me now, the sound of grace bouncing off the empty furniture. I will remember this moment in the days to come, when I doubt my motives and question my ambitions. I will remember how He affirms me.

Welcome worry so that you can give it what it needs and then release it away from yourself.

And when I get home I remember what our Pastor Swamidass said from the screen on Sunday- 

“Walk in the peace He provides. The difference between terror and excitement is trusting who is in control.”

If I am not careful, the excitement of my journey can become terror- only when I welcome Jesus into my worry can I reset my intentions.

Only when I make margin for the worry to be acknowledged, welcomed, and fully felt can it  then be fully released to Jesus because I remember that the outcome of each fear can be freely surrendered to Him.

If you long for the three fundamental needs of human existence, love, safety, and control, then you must first meet with yourself on the level of your emotions.

Take stock of your emotions, meet with them, greet them with respect and hear their needs without judgement. Then invite Jesus into each piece of insecurity and watch how He begins a healing work in those hurting places.

When I worry, I have begun to welcome the worry as a friend in need of guidance. “Welcome, worry, you are invited to be here for a little while. Tell me what you need.”

When worry is triggered in a relationship, I say “Welcome, Jesus. You are here with me.”

When worry is activated inside my body as anxiety, I say “Welcome, Jesus, welcome inside this part of me that feels fear.”

When worry rises up with hurtful memories, I say “Welcome, Jesus, I invite you into my past because only You know how to heal it.”

This welcoming prayer is a tool that I use to heal my emotional wounds and insecurities- I need it daily, especially since beginning this unexpected journey towards something new.

Our emotions like to present themselves as complicated, but usually they are not so. Often, at the center of an emotional reaction is a wound, plain and simple, and inviting the professional Counselor of our souls is exactly what we need to begin the healing process.

Friends, allow me this one last thing before I conclude-

Before my intention to attend school and return to studies, my husband had the inclination to build me an office space. It was supposed to be for my creative writing, which I do on the side. He ordered the furniture and drew up the plans.

Turns out he was creating a space for my studies before either of us realized.

But there was certainly Someone who knew exactly what would be needed, and He was one step ahead of me lighting the way.

Reader, I invite you to say this when you feel your own worry rising-

The Welcoming Prayer (by Father Thomas Keating)
Welcome, welcome, welcome.
I welcome everything that comes to me today
because I know it's for my healing.
I welcome all thoughts, feelings, emotions, persons,
situations, and conditions.
I let go of my desire for power and control.
I let go of my desire for affection, esteem,
approval and pleasure.
I let go of my desire for survival and security.
I let go of my desire to change any situation,
condition, person or myself.
I open to the love and presence of God and
God's action within. Amen.

Friends, combat your worry with contemplative prayer- invite Jesus into the dark places, the hurting places, the doubt and the fear. Let Him abide with you in anxiety and begin His healing work in your soul.

The tiny egg of our desires will be abandoned because of fear if we do not actively fight for a place in the margin where we can sit and nurse our frightened inner child.

Who knew that hopes and dreams were such targets for emotional violence?

To run away from fear is to abandon your hopes and dreams to the clutches of a hard and broken world.

So when worry comes in to attack your territory, do not flee- welcome it in and open up a conversation with it. Find out what it needs.

Contemplate your fears without criticizing them- invite Jesus to abide in them with you, find out what you need, and trust Him to meet that need.

He may just build you a desk or cancel a week of school just to affirm His love for you.

And if not that, at the very least He will bring the peace that passes understanding, because He cares about what happens to you.

Trust your emotions to the One who made them and gave them to you.

Trust your desires to the One who put them in your heart.

Welcome your worry, invite your Savior, and abide in the margin of surrender and healing.

Sit there with your dreams, keep them warm, and do not abandon the nest which holds the desires of your heart.

Beneath those worries you will find a treasure. Don't be afraid to dig deep to find it. Don't be afraid to sit with yourself in the pit even when it's scary.

Extend empathy and compassion to yourself because this keeps your spirit warm.

Remain diligent, my friends. Sit in the margin even when worry comes, and never abandon the God-given needs of your soul.

With Love,

Rebecca

~*~

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