He Is Not Safe..... (pt2)

I have discovered over the past few years that journeying with God is never boring and sometimes painful. We tend to have this idea that God never causes us pain but I know this is not true. He most definitely brings pain into our lives but it is not without purpose and beauty of it's own.

I remember asking my mom when I was about four or five why God made pain. I wondered why things hurt. The way she explained it me has forever becoming cemented in my memory. She asked me to imagine walking barefoot on a sandy beach. In the sand there are shards of glass. As you walk your feet are being continually cut open by the glass. If we did not feel pain, we would have no idea that we are being cut and could end up bleeding to death. Because of pain, we know that something is wrong. I love what C.S. Lewis has to say about pain in his book The Problem of Pain. He says, "We can ignore even pleasure. But pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world."

Wounds that Heal Part 1

Memories are interesting things, often taking on their own life, their own personality. They decide when they want to be remembered and forgotten, sometimes they lie, other times they tell the brutal, honest truth. There are memories that bring you joy, memories that bring nostalgia and a tinge of sadness, and memories that bring you nothing but pain.

And there are those that hide.

New Direction

I realize that is has been quite a long time since my last post and any of you reading this blog probably have all sorts of questions regarding the past 8 months of my life. I will probably not answer of them in this blog and for that I am sorry. If you would like to know more about how the rest of my time went with YWAM, feel free to email me and I will gladly answer any questions you may have and give you more details on how my time was.

God is so amazing! The past three months since I have been home have been both wonderful and exceedingly difficult. I thought I was prepared for what would face me upon returning home. The feelings of loneliness after having spent the past six months surrounded by like-minded people almost literally 24/7, not knowing where I fit in here anymore, feeling misunderstood. But my was I wrong. Yes, I did face all of those, but it was much more difficult than I had anticipated. The first two and half months home were awful. I felt so out of place and so unwanted. That has all changed in the last three weeks.

When I was in Turkey on outreach I had a few very deep discussions with my outreach leader about things I was facing. One day we were sitting in Starbucks in Antalya, Turkey and I was sharing with him about how I was feeling so distant from God and wasn't hearing his voice. That led to a conversation about where we find our satisfaction. I told him that I knew on an intellectual level that God was enough for me and I could find my entire satisfaction in him but I couldn't honestly say that was true for me. I said to him, "I WANT God to be my everything, but He's just not and I don't know how to change that. I don't have a clue how I am supposed to go about making Him my everything."

I thought of that conversation from time to time after that but didn't really give it much more consideration. Until a few weeks ago.

I had had a crazy couple of days where God was talking to me like never before and I had this thought: "I'm not even spending time with God right now! How is this happening when I'm not spending time with Him?" I then heard the voice of God (not audibly, mind you, but it was God, no less) speak and say, "If this is happening to you now when you're not spending time with me, what will happen when you do begin to spend time with me and make me more of a priority?" I was blown away! So, I set out to do just that. I took almost two days to nothing but spend time with God. I turned off my phone, I didn't talk to anyone, I didn't watch tv or listen to music or read any books. For 30 hours, God was my sole focus. During that time I did a lot of reading in the 1 and 2 Kings and Jeremiah. I spent time just talking with God and resting in His presence. At the very end of my time I asked God to speak to me and sat there with pen in hand expectant. And He spoke. I knew He would but I was not prepared for how much He told and what He told me. It was absolutely amazing.

After I was finished with that I was reading a book I bought a while back entitled Starving Jesus. It's a pretty cool book that deals with all sorts of topics. The passage I just happened to be reading was talking about fasting. The guy writing was talking about how God convicted him and told him to fast for 40 days. He said that it was during that 40 day period that he learned how to truly make God his everything. I felt God speaking to me through that. He said, "This is how you do it, Melyssa. Fast for 40 days and you will learn how to make me your everything."

Since then so much has happened that I'm not even going to go into. God has changed my direction and brought some interesting opportunities my way. I was talking with three other wonderful women of God whom I am close friends with and we decided that we would all fast together. And this is where you find me, three days into my fast.

Normally, I would not be sharing something so intimate and private in such a public forum but I really felt that in addition to the private journaling I'm doing during this time I need to also be chronicling this journey here. I will not be posting ever day and I will not be talking about the particulars of how the fast is going but rather I will be sharing with you what I am learning about myself and about God and His heart during this time. I will be sharing scripture verses and observations on those verses as well as things God may speak to me. I invite you to join me on this journey and see if God reveals something to you as well. As much as fasting is a very personal thing, God told me that this is also about everyone around me. I am fasting for myself and my relationship with my Creator but I am also fasting for you.

Let us begin this journey with great anticipation. God will speak and He will reveal Himself. It's all a matter of how. And that is where the fun begins!

Week One

Today was the final day of week one lectures! This week has been seriously intense. I knew that one of the big reasons God was leading me to DTS was so that He could really work healing in my life. I expected things to get pretty intense emotionally but definitely did not expect it get so intense so quickly. I was expecting that the first couple weeks would be an easing into time, but no! God hit me hard with a bunch of things that needed dealt with and exposed several things from past where God wants to bring healing. It was difficult. It was painful. But it was so very good.

I still have a lot that I need to process and know that this was only the first step in the healing process. I am excited and nervous all at the same time about this. Walking through the healing process is a scary thing. I know that it's good, but it also sucks quite a bit! It's not easy to dig down deep into emotions that have burried for 19 years. It's even harder to look at the source of those emotions.

The human mind and heart is a very beautiful, yet very scary place to be. It's easy for me to walk around and convince myself that I am fine when, if I am honest with myself, I know that I am far from. The thing that scares the most about this process is not feeling the pain or reliving the experiences that caused the pain, it's discovering who I am underneath all the pain. I was sharing with one of the guys in the School of Biblical studies about some of the things I'm working through and had a very profound realization. I am terrified of finding out who I really am. I have gone so long trying to be what I think other people want and covering up myself that I have no idea who I am underneath it all and I am scared that once I strip all that away, I won't like the person I discover.

I, like everyone else who has ever walked this earth (aside from Jesus, of course) have some gross, dark places inside my heart. Those places scare me. I am so scared to look into those places and see the ugliness that is me in my sin. I don't want to go there. I'm scared that if I do, it will seep out between the cracks and may take over me. I know that this is all just fear and I know that God is bigger than that and I'm his creation and I've surrendered him and blah blah blah. I know all this. But the fear is still there. It's a scary place to be when you're looking deep asking God to open you up and heal you and run across these dark places. It is absolutely terrifying but I won't allow the fear to stop me or control me.

I will look into the dark places of my soul and will allow God to shine His light. I will go where there is darkness and sin and yuckiness and allow Christ's healing power to come into those places and transform me. I will allow God to take me into the dark places of my heart so that I can then go into the dark places in the world and bring light and healing.

He is faithful and will not leave me alone in this. He will be faithful and He will make a way. Of this I am sure.