35 Years {My Gift}

God gave me a divine appointment yesterday that I will here unwrap: I can consider a position on the Pastoral Care Team for my church family.

As my readers know, later this year I will go to Seminary (I have been accepted!!) and also train as a life coach with the Freedom Center OC. And the bow on top of this gift is that I can reinstate the same title which I lost and grieved in a lengthy state of depression and self-doubt.

If you know my story, you know what this means for my faith.

Today it is my birthday- I am 35 years old. I am messy and imperfect and lacking in many ways, and so there is nothing I did to earn or deserve this chapter. This is grace.

I have never been more uncertain of the purpose of my future and yet absolutely certain that God is doing something new and something very specific with my journey.

I have been invited to consider joining the Pastoral Care Team at Saddleback Church Yorba Linda. For me personally, this is big. It means that God has returned everything back to me that I thought I had lost- my dignity, my calling as a pastor, my church family, my drive to learn, my desire to grow spiritually, teaching Sunday school, setting up the church campus in the early mornings, my titles, my labels, my badge, my walkie-talkie, even becoming friends with the children's ministry pastor and the teaching pastor. 

Little things, big things. He has returned to me all the things I grieved. Not identical to what they were, but perfect because they are His and not mine. And not because I earned them back, but because His love is lavished upon me through the power of His will.

I am learning to slowly trust this truth: There is nothing you can do to fall out of the will of God if you are pursuing Him with all your heart.

Yes, Jesus awakened this call in my heart to serve in pastoral care several years ago, and so THIS time I will trust Him with the outcome.

I do not credit those who have hurt me with paving this path, because they are the ones who almost squelched it and crushed me. That damage seems even now to be permanent. However, I credit them with being the passing messengers of God's greater calling on my life.

I have learned a few things along the way. Choice mistakes into which I have dug deep, found the roots, and begun to pull them up and out.

I will not push through with striving, but I will wait for His perfect timing.

This is a birthday of second chances.

~*~

It was the early hours of Sunday morning, Father's Day, when I woke before the rest of my family in order to arrive early at the church campus to set up the Children’s Ministry area.

There would be old cars and family pictures to celebrate the Dads in our community.

I prepared to go into my day with a heart open to receive from my good Father of grace. I would receive imperfectly, but I would apply my stubborn and persistent faith to the best that I was able. For grace is not opposed to effort but to earning.

The routine actions of each morning are the same, so I can move through my sleepy morning fog with machine-like precision. And after I am ready, each morning I eat two boiled eggs followed by one banana and one scoop of soy yogurt with cinnamon and a drizzle of honey. And one tall glass of water.

I always take my bible and my journal with me to the breakfast table, even if I only have a few minutes to spare. This is one way to keep myself emotionally healthy even when I do NOT want to practice soul care.

And this morning, I felt something nagging me from within- an unwanted emotion.

Grief? Depression?

Hurt.

Not again. Oh, old pain, I don’t have time for you today. Not now.

But I have learned to acknowledge these feelings, because they come from deep wounds which need attention. To ignore the truth is to force it to leak out in unwanted places that produce bitter and broken fruit.

So instead of avoiding the feeling stirring inside, I stared right at it and wrote only that which was really honest:

Dear Jesus- Today I acknowledge the hurt feelings that rise up inside against my will. I check in with my soul to see what continues to need care and healing. What are the parts of me that don’t have a voice, the places that are shut tight inside? This is where I need Your grace to infiltrate and flood in. Dear soul, why are you downcast? I spent this time remembering all my hurts. Jesus, I ask You to sit with me here and show me how to heal. I give myself permission to feel wounded, and I give You permission to enter the pain and extend grace and empathy to myself, through myself, because I need to be seen today. Amen.

And I wallowed in my sorrow for a bit, because you cannot put a time limit on the healing process.

But God lifted me up when it was time to release the grief back to Him, and I credit myself with responding willingly, even though I wanted to nurse the sad for a while longer.

He said, “It's Father's Day and I am your Good Father. Tomorrow is your birthday and I am the one who created you. My child, I want to bless you here. Make room for something new.”

So I finished my breakfast, pushed back the plate and read Numbers 22 before I left to serve my church in the wee hours of the day.

No time now for context, but here is what spoke to me as I read while I sipped my water-

Numbers 22:18-19 (NLT)

¹⁸ But Balaam responded to Balak’s messengers, “Even if Balak were to give me his palace filled with silver and gold, I would be powerless to do anything against the will of the Lord my God. ¹⁹ But stay here one more night, and I will see if the Lord has anything else to say to me.”

I am powerless to do anything against the will of the Lord my God?

Well, to feel powerless is to feel vulnerable and unsafe- any human would avoid a situation where he or she feels powerless.

To be powerless is to be a victim, exposed to the will of another.

And I have learned the hard way throughout the course of 35 years that being powerless before another fallen human being is dangerous and often produces pain.

But my Father is not fallen or broken. Dangerous? Yes.

But also, He is very good.

His will is perfect. Can we submit our power to the perfect will of a loving Father?

What if I am a victim of grace?

And so I decided to wait and see if the Lord had anything else to say to me.

The house was quiet and I was running late. Nothing.

I put away the Scripture and my journal and moved into the cold morning with tired hope. I pushed chairs, pulled boxes, unloaded crates and set up the classroom.

Does the Lord have anything else to say to me?

I am working up a sweat, setting up the classrooms before the children arrive.

Enter my campus pastor, who strikes up a conversation which leads to discussion about my recent acceptance into Talbot Seminary.

“What is your major?”

“Well, I want a Master of Divinity, which will take me a long time to achieve. But the emphasis I will be working on throughout the years to come is in Pastoral Care and Counseling."

“Really? Wow, well just this week we are starting to put together a Pastoral Care Team for our campus. Let me connect you with the leaders, they would love to meet you!”

And I find myself shaking hands with a couple that wants to meet for dinner in the weeks to come, so we can discuss my experience, my story, and my desire to serve the church through Pastoral Care.

They want to consider me for their pastoral care team.

I am being seen.

~*~

Friends, only if you have followed my story will you understand the meaning this has. Since I decided to pursue seminary graduate work, new doors have opened which I could never have anticipated.

This is grace, of which I am a victim.

Several weeks ago I was invited to join a cohort which will teach me the discipline of counselling women into freedom.

Now I find myself suddenly invited to meet a couple who is interested in adding me to a newly forming pastoral care team. 

Does this chapter sound familiar??

The timing of the gift is not lost on me today, my birthday.

When I am headed towards Jesus, no matter how far away I presently am from the prize, I am powerless to do anything against the will of my Father, because even my greatest mistakes and biggest regrets have not prevented these blessings from coming.

And so as I come to the breakfast table this morning to read the Word and write about my feelings, here is my journal entry on the 35^th year of my story:

Father- you have given me the gift of second chances. I have been adopted into Your famly and I have inherited Your eternal riches. I see that You are moving in to bless me, and so I position myself to receive. Jesus, I do not deserve Your grace but I am daily given a reason to keep moving towards it. Search my heart and soul, and let Your Spirit reveal whether I am striving to earn Your love OR making efforts to draw near to it. I look back at my first 35 years and I see many seeds planted- some among the choking weeds, shallow soil or painful exposure to harm; but others in good, rich soil which will daily grow into a harvest of good fruit in the 35 years yet to come. Thank you, God, for all that You have done to reach me. I am Yours and I will follow You. Your will be done. Amen.

I am going to Seminary. I am training to be a life coach. And now I will begin the pursuit of a position in Pastoral Care for my church family.

Seriously, unreal. Just how God has given me back every thing that was lost. Not in the way I wanted, and not without massive amounts of painful refinement which continue on to this very day. But all of it with a persuasive abundance of beloved grace.

I have never been more uncertain of the future and yet certain that God is doing something new.

Can train-wrecks be redeemed? Well, mine is in the process. One year ago I was wallowing in grief to such a degree that I believed I would not see the light of another day.

Today I belong to a new church family, I embrace a lost-and-found dream, and I still battle with anxiety but in the midst of ever-increasing grace.

Here I sit, in the early morning hours of my 35th year, choosing to remain powerless before the perfect will of my good and powerful Father.

I will bask in the gift of a second chance. I will learn to trust. I will allow myself to feel joy and I will surrender more pieces of my grief.

I have never been more uncertain of the purpose of my future and yet absolutely certain that God is doing something new and something very specific.

Shame has no place here.

Fear, I see you, but you cannot stay for long.

Depression, I know you are near, but my soul is in the care of Someone else.

I am a victim of Grace, and so I will surrender here and see what else He wants to say to me on this day, my birthday.

The path less traveled is certainly full of blessings, even among the rocky places of pain. If He can use my wounds for freedom, He can certainly use yours as well. Our setbacks really CAN become our superpowers.

Do not be afraid to become powerless before your Creator- His will is dangerous, but it is very good.

I will write this next year of my story as a victim of Grace.

Happy birthday to me :)

Rebecca

~*~

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Contemplative Prayer {Let Sleeping Dogs Lie}

When your guard dog stops barking, that's the time to have a real conversation with God. So always let sleeping dogs lie when you come to the place of contemplative prayer. For as the mysterious Rescuer becomes the intimate Beloved, we must shift our mindset and change the way we talk to Him.

In the aftermath of the storm, when we are still unsorted but no longer emotionally driven, this is where He does His transformation work. Moving from spiritual infancy to relational intimacy with our God is a challenge that includes the vulnerability of communicating with Him.

I wonder as I sit here today- is my faith based upon the adrenaline of emotionally fueled need? Or can I converse with my Savior when I am in His gentle abiding presence, even when I am not carried along by the powerful rescuing of His power? 

When I look back and see the places where there were two sets of footprints in the sand instead of His one, were we walking together in silence or was I sharing aloud my thoughts with Him?

When the emotion dies down and the dust settles, this is where we begin the discipline of figuring out how to talk to God on a daily basis. Like a marriage that moves beyond the honeymoon stage of emotional ups and downs, we can no longer base our faith on our response to the pendulum swing of feeling and response. 

Now that I am safely on dry ground, what can I say once the gratitude comes to an end and the adrenaline of decision runs out?

My transparent confession here is that I don’t know how to talk to God on a normal day- it feels stoic and detached if my prayer is not compelled by tears. And there is nothing lifegiving about an outlook on faith that requires pain to remain motivated.

This past week I have been anxious about my prayer life, so it was time to stop and settle myself into a sermon about surrender, yokes and sustainable faith. And so here today I will attempt to connect my stunted prayer life to the sermon at my home church, a weekend workshop I attended on fear, and silly pictures of my sleeping dog…

I sat down in my study for the first time since we completed it over the weekend, the space my husband created for my love of writing and hope for learning. God willing I will be going to school part-time in the Fall, but either way this is a new and sacred space for my creative and productive writing endeavors. So I paused here in this room to listen to the sermon from Sunday. 

It was a talk from Pastor Rick about keeping your tank full when you are tempted to try running on empty. After a nine-part series on living with margin, my church family wraps up this practical application series with a theme which turned out to be demonstrated right in front of me as I sat there listening-

My dog was asleep on her bed, back on the floor and legs in the air, eyes shut and tongue hanging out. It was clearly well with her soul. 

This is why yoga poses get named after dogs, because they know something we humans don’t- God created us to rest and refuel. This means laying flat on our backs with no agenda and no worries (even if we are normally itchy and high-octane, hell-bound on catching squirrels, retrieving balls and barking viciously at coyotes), relaxing even our tongue so that we do not speak but receive life-giving communion in the silence of our soul.

She was allowing her brain to enter into a state of complete vulnerable relaxation, because even the animals know that silence and solitude is required for healthy survival.

This high-powered, ball-fetching, saber-toothed machine was in a posture of refueling that expressed wisdom which far surpassed my straight back and crossed legs as I sat consuming Christianity in my rocking chair. And Pastor Rick talked for nearly 90 minutes about coming to Jesus for an easy yoke and a releasing of burdens.

But how do you find this kind of rest when

you don’t know how to talk to God

on the other side of a storm?

Last Saturday I went to a workshop at The Freedom Center called Fearless, and in the course of six hours I was invited to explore the deeper pieces of my relationship to Jesus. Especially significant to me was being reminded of a tool I already have in my belt which I rarely ever use- the beautiful practice of Lectio Divina. 

Lectio Divina is a divine reading of Scripture followed by a quiet contemplation of the words; you simply sit with the reading and absorb it into your mind. In practice over time, you begin finding a physical place in the Scripture where you belong, especially if it’s a story passage. The reader literally dwells in the reading, abiding in the meaning and allowing herself to feel whatever is the natural response to this invitation to join Jesus on the page.

I could see the disparity between my inability to pray out loud and my desire to meet Him only in the storm. When the emotional chaos is over, He invites me into the aftermath, which is the most intimate meeting of all, because in that quiet place of post-destruction is where we can speak with Him most calmly and receive His gentle sorting through the damage that was done.

Without the pressure of desperate need and imperative rescue, what do our words sound like when we speak to Him- or do we speak at all? If our conversations with Jesus only happen during storms, very little is actually said and we never develop a conversational relationship, but rather depend on emotion to drive our communication with God. But this is not sustainable. Thus, seeking relationship with Jesus in the gentle margins of drama is a significant part of spiritual formation.

During the workshop we specifically practiced Lectio Divina from the story of when Jesus calms the storm.

It reads like this:

Mark 4:35-41 (NLT)

³⁵ As evening came, Jesus said to his disciples, “Let’s cross to the other side of the lake.” ³⁶ So they took Jesus in the boat and started out, leaving the crowds behind (although other boats followed). ³⁷ But soon a fierce storm came up. High waves were breaking into the boat, and it began to fill with water.

³⁸ Jesus was sleeping at the back of the boat with his head on a cushion. The disciples woke him up, shouting, “Teacher, don’t you care that we’re going to drown?”

³⁹ When Jesus woke up, he rebuked the wind and said to the waves, “Silence! Be still!” Suddenly the wind stopped, and there was a great calm. ⁴⁰ Then he asked them, “Why are you afraid? Do you still have no faith?”

⁴¹ The disciples were absolutely terrified. “Who is this man?” they asked each other. “Even the wind and waves obey him!”

After the reading we spent several minutes in silence allowing ourselves to connect with the text and find ourselves in it.

I found myself writing these words in my quiet reflection on the passage-

I am a bird above the storm. I cannot see what is happening, I don’t know who is involved. But I know I am afraid and there is danger.

The clouds begin to break apart very suddenly, and there is an invitation- keep flying onward or dive down and see what God has been doing here.

Ignore the damage and miss the healing, or stop and enter the aftermath in order to see Jesus face to face?

The storm has passed and the invitation is to come and see what God is doing there now…

What is God doing here with me now that the storm is over? What is He sorting through?

All week I have abstained from prayer because I don’t know what to say. I think my relationship to Him has been based on the emotional turmoil of the past few years- so what now?? I have come through a storm, but I am still myself, and God is still God, and how do I spend an entire lifetime as His beloved when I don't know how to talk to Him on a normal day?

So as I sat and listened to Pastor Rick discuss resting in Jesus, I found myself feeling ashamed and anxious- am I doing this spiritual growth thing right? Am I getting it down? Why don’t I have an abundance of peace? Is my margin big enough for deep healing to happen? Is my faith really so shallow???

All the while my dog snores at my feet, and God knocks at my heart and the light of peace rages outside my window.

“Daughter,” He says, “I am not in a hurry. I want to be in your story with you as Your source of deep soul-rest and contentment. Stop asking these questions of yourself and start asking them of Me. Don’t doubt yourself, doubt Me and then watch how I will exceed your expectations every time. Surrender the unsorted fallout, now that the storm is over, and abide with Me in the messy aftermath as we float together here on a clam sea of deep waters.”

Says my pastor as I rock and listen and worry, “It is miserable to sit in God’s waiting room when we are in a hurry and He is not.”

Jesus, I have a lovely room to wait in, but my mind is somewhere else today, chasing after every worry and fear that passes through my thoughts. I don't know how to relate to You outside of a storm.

So I look for storms for my faith to ride on. Like the worry that I won’t finish grad school when I haven't even started or been accepted yet. Irrational? But God! I am a full-time mommy of two- and today I have a sick boy home from school, and the fear rises up which says I cannot miss class and take care of my sick child at the same time, so what am I going to do, God?

Anxiety says quit while you are ahead, because it might be hard. Assume there is a storm even when there is not one, because who knows when another one will set in. Live each day like there is a storm, even when there is not. Search for storms and pray about them like crazy, never letting an opportunity pass you by to grab worry by the horns and ride it into the sunset.

And then how is God supposed to speak to us over the screaming chaos of our fears? If He is always rescuing us, how can He ever meet with us in the calm places of our mind?

So God leans in closer and says, “Meet Me in the margin and let sleeping dogs lie.”

And that margin is a discipline, one which requires contemplative prayer.

Friends, God has called me to prayer this week. No, not the prayer I say in the presence of others, but the prayer I speak aloud into the silence when I am alone with Him.

This is hard. It feels vulnerable to come to God without desperate need, but simply to approach Him for the sake of intimate conversation. To say to Him, "can we talk about what happened, now that it's over and I can think more clearly?"

When my guard dog stops barking, that's the time to have a real conversation with God.

To communicate with the Spirit effectively, we must allow Him to calm the storm of our emotions and bring quiet to the chaotic places in our mind. Then we must be willing to meet with Him in the aftermath, amidst the silent disorder and quiet confusion, and begin to sort things out. Piece by piece, thought by thought, broken relationships and old wounds attended to in the quiet of our conversation which is slightly muffled by the vast silence all around us.

To be alone with God after the storm is to be absolutely and terrifyingly vulnerable. To speak in this space is even more so. To let sleeping dogs lie means to enter into a sacred space where the only agenda is relational intimacy.

Contemplative prayer happens in the margin of our emotions, in the space between input and reaction, observation and conclusion, realization and response. If we can widen the margin between the calming of the storm and the rapid moving onwards towards the next storm, in that sacred space we can find healing for our soul through a closeness of our Savior.

I learned an awakening fact at the Fearless workshop- Prayer is centered in the part of the brain that processes and understands what has happened post-reaction. So contemplative prayer is actually centered in the calm which comes after the storm.

Now I am no neuroscientist, so don’t correct my lack of knowledge on the subject of brain science. Just give me grace for the path of learning I am taking at my own slow pace. I’m doing the best I know how with the little information I have thus far. But according to what I heard, contemplative prayer happens in the rational part of our brain called the neocortex.

Here is what struck me when I learned this about prayer- I have a hard time praying because I feel like I should have a wave of emotion behind my words when I pray out loud. Otherwise I feel like they are not authentic.

Basically, I am only good at praying when I am in a storm- afterwards, I don't know what to say.

Whenever I pray in public, or even in quiet, I become calm and almost “emotionless” as my mind centers on the words and my awareness movse away from how I was feeling before I started the prayer. I disassociate from my emotions when I pray out loud. I thought this was a problem.

But wouldn’t this be a good thing for someone who struggles with anxiety? Yes. Because it means I can move out from under anxiety when I pray, because prayer brings my awareness to a part of my brain which is rational and good at reasoning and regulating emotion. And it explains a lot about how prayer practiced as a discipline over time literally heals the brain from unwanted emotion.

But somehow I have always considered myself a “bad” pray-er because I never feel "emotional" when I speak plain and simple words to God out loud- unless I am in a storm. When my prayers are desperate and broken and full of tear-filled repentant need for rescue, then I have strong communication with God. But one cannot live an entire prayer life dependent upon storms, because who can live in continual fear?

So I almost always write my prayers, because then they flow with emotion and feel genuine and also safe, since writing happens in a different place within the brain than speaking. Writing my prayers is great, and I have written countless prayers and treasure them and will pass them onto my children someday. But despite my written affluence, I still stumble to speak to God out loud. 

Yet I hear a call to create intimacy with Christ by meeting with Him in the margin and speaking with Him in the places that need freedom from fear. There is hope to know that peaceful prayer is actually supposed to be free from raging emotion, because God located it in a different place in our brain. It has a sacred space all it's own, and for good reason- it keeps is safe from the storm and accessible outside of emotional turbulence. Good news for me, but still hard to realize.

Unlike when I write to Him, when I actually talk to God I feel very small and insufficient and rather deflated. When I get quiet before God I can hear His invitation in the aftermath of emotional chaos, but I don't know how to reply. So often I am intimidated by the invitation to meet with Him in the calm, because I am so accustomed to meeting Him only in the chaos. But in the discipline of contemplative prayer, if I wait with humility and patience and trust His gentle presence, He will point out a quiet place where our conversation can begin.

As He meets me in my insecurities, He gently invites me to speak with Him in the places that accommodate intimate conversation.

It is this separation of emotion and prayer that feels foreign and confusing, vulnerable and intimate. Why am I here, if not to ask for something I need? To approach our God for the sake of being with Him, to come to Him unsorted and exposed and uncertain, this is what it means to let sleeping dogs lie. Don't upset the restful state of mind, but abide in it and receive much needed healing in calmer waters.

Just as contemplative prayer happens in the neocortex of the brain, I also learned that emotion is located in the limbic system, a separate part of the brain. This is where we feel- the place where the storm hits and the reaction happens. This is where we act without thinking and evaluate later. This is where regrets happen, and words we cannot take back. This is where shame takes root.

Thankfully for anxiety-prone people such as myself, the place inside our brain where we practice contemplative prayer is not the same place as where we experience violent emotional storms.

So there is a difference between braving the storm and speaking with the Savior. There must be an experience of both extremes- extreme emotion and extreme tranquility. To have a quiet mind allows God to meet us on a deeper level. Big emotions can pave the way for communion with God because they indicate the areas that need healing and create opportunity for invitation, but intimate conversation with God happens after the storm has passed. 

Braving the waves may initiate the start of a relationship with Him, but they cannot define it. We must meet with Jesus in the quite places of our mind where we can process His love for us and the reason for His rescue. When the dog is sleeping, let it be, because as sure as the dawn it will rise up and demand attention soon enough. When prayer is not fueled by emotion, pray anyways- even if it feels empty, as I know it does sometimes. 

In the letdown after a storm, contemplative prayer is an access to His presence that is only possible in the quiet state of still waters.

Prayer heals the brain because speaking to God requires mental processing, rational thought and awareness of the present moment. So in order to get from emotional response down into contemplative prayer, we must invite Jesus to discuss the storm with us after it is all over, so that we can come down from our fearful flight high in the sky and see what He is doing at ground level within us.

I liken the storm to the amygdala, that part of our limbic system which is in fight or flight mode.

My daughter calls the amygdala the "guard dog", one which is always on the lookout for danger. It worries, stresses, panics, doubts, and has not concept of time. It is a place of emotional turmoil- we need help to regulate and calm this internal chaos. Jesus, in my imaginative illustration here, is the hippocampus. This is a place in our brain which requires language in order to heal and grow. My daughter calls this the "wise owl" of her thoughts. It moderates the storm through analytical reasoning, builds context for situations and pulls things into perspective. It keeps the guard dog calm under stress.

If we put language to what we are feeling, if we pray aloud in the silence of the aftermath, we allow Jesus to enter in and move into the neocortex, that place in our brain where we can begin to pray and process and begin to develop sustainable, intimate relationship with Him.

This is good news for anxious, prayer-stunted, shell-shocked followers of Jesus such as myself.

I want to become brave enough to dive into the aftermath and talk rationally with Him about what has happened and what He is doing to sort it all out now.

Friends, the hope I have today is that I can assist in my own healing process by learning to how to pray. I activate my neocortex when I speak with Jesus, and I can process my anxiety in a healthy way through even the most timid conversation with Him. Now that I know this, I can consciously invite Jesus to meet with me in the stillness of my rational brain, separate from my emotion, so that we can converse together in peace. For an anxious worrier like myself, this is a great comfort. 

I look forward to practicing this more in the days to come as I anticipate going back to school.

I want to begin enter into awe and wonder when I approach conversation with God, as I desire to move down into the stillness of the aftermath. When I am anxious, I will remember the tool of contemplative prayer- it does not take away the cause of my anxiety, but it frees me up to converse with my Teacher about whatever is going on. It helps me find a sacred space to do healing work by His side. This is Jesus doing a transforming work within me, inviting His child to see not only the unsorted damage but to witness the miracle of soul repair that He is quietly carrying out.

We actively assist in our own healing when we practice contemplative prayer, and this happens through words that are humble, gentle and honest. This, my friends, is why He tells us that His burden is light.

Matthew 11:28-30 (NLT)

²⁸ Then Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. ²⁹ Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls. ³⁰ For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light.”

When Pastor Rick talks to us about soul-deep rest, he is talking about the promise that if we meet with Jesus in the margin through disciplines such as Lecto Divina and contemplative prayer, our brain will literally arrive in a place where we can communicate clearly with our God and receive the comfort and peace that we crave.

No, the problems are not solved, the worries are not erased. But they are given proper perspective, a place of submission beneath the gracious will of God. And He can begin to sort through the wreckage alongside us, and we will be in awe that He is so good to love us even when we feel so unsorted.

This is how you find rest 

and intimacy with God

on the other side of a storm.

Father, forgive me for neglecting to meet and talk with You on so many occasions. I have preferred to fly over the storm and ignore it, rather than waiting for You to part the clouds and inviting me to survey the damage with You so that we can begin the repair together. Please help me find the language I need to speak words of surrender to You so that I can experience the lightness of Your yoke upon my shoulders, and the freedom to slow my pace and arrive alongside You instead of moving on, away from healing and towards another storm. For myself and all those who are reading this today, I ask for You to quiet the chaos of our ego-mind so that we can experience the deep healing of trusting You with our emotional weariness. God, invite us again to survey the damage and meet with You in the place in our brain where we process information and contemplate Your words. May I learn to trust You both in the speaking and in the silence, both in the storm and in the peace, and please bless my feeble attempts to talk to You when the storm is over and I don’t know what to say.

Thank you for loving me even when I feel so unsorted.

In Jesus name, Amen.

As we go into this week, dear friends, may we remember that in order to exchange our emotional burden for the mental processing of peace, we must meet with Him in the calm which comes after the storm. Here the emotion dies down and the dust settles, because it is after the storm is over that He does His most intimate work within us, sorting gently and quietly through the wreckage as we talk about each piece with Him. And as the mysterious Rescuer becomes the intimate Beloved, we can shift our mindset and change the way we talk to Him. 

Thank you so much for contemplating this in prayer with me today- I very much appreciate my tiny tribe of readers.

When your guard dog stops barking, that's the time to have that intimate conversation with Jesus for which He patiently awaits. So let sleeping dogs lie, and may all canines be peaceful and happy as we contemplate Gods' Word in the quiet aftermath of the storm :)

With Gratitude,

Rebecca

~*~

Support my work by following my page.

To read my story or

view my creative writing,

please visit my original blog site.

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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