Faith

My current story is a story of faith renewed. I feel like I have recently found my faith; it was missing for quite some time. I was just going through the motions of life.

It seems my three words, from my previous post entitled Grace, are going backwards. I wasn’t ready to heal or even think about it. I could understand humility as a concept. I knew that I had to be humble to know and accept that I needed to heal but I was not ready for either. However, I was willing to participate when I wasn’t yet willing to be humble or heal.

So I started to really participate. That was two weeks ago. The first time being that night’s Sunday dinner. Then I went to 2fortytwo on Tuesday and bible study on Thursday. Again, I went to church on Sunday and dinner at the Ameele’s. All of these talked about seeking god. At least that was the message I heard.

What does seeking god look like? The simple answer is participating. You participate in that relationship. You engage in bible studies. You worship at 2fortytwo. You pray for yourself and others. You serve and use your spiritual gifts. You become open to god’s Love because god’s Love can’t change you if you don’t accept it.

It is amazing what you will find when you look for it. I was actively participating but healing and humility did not start to surface until last week.

Last Tuesday, I almost did not come to 2fortytwo. It was a friend’s birthday and everyone was invited out to dinner at seven. I’m sure it was fun but I knew in my gut that I belonged at church that night and not at the party. And I am not in any way judging my friends for not coming; I just had an overwhelming feeling that I had to go. I needed to hear the message that night.

So I was shocked when Mike Ower started speaking about 1 Peter 5:5 and that first slide went up, a picture of a wall with two words: Pride and Fear. Those words were what was stopping me from healing or even being open to the idea of healing. As soon as I saw that wall … I thought to myself … ok God I’m listening. I’m ready to talk about humility. I’m ready to be humble. Let’s see what You have to say tonight.

I took detailed notes writing down verses and other tidbits. Just a few things I wrote: Humility lets you become free to heal; God’s love makes you humble; Humility leads to strength.

My emotions emerged in the middle of worship. Tears because I knew I wasn’t being honest with myself. I was afraid of what I would find if I climbed over that wall or tore it down. Also, I didn’t think I had the tools to accomplish that task. How do you destroy a wall you built to try and protect yourself? It could have been that my wall was just a bit higher than the one in the picture. Maybe it was thicker? At least it seems to have taken a while to get through it. It is weird just how confining your pride can be and how difficult it is to overcome your own obstacle.

At Thursday night bible study, humility surfaced again. We were studying Psalm 62. And verse 8 really stood out as I looked at it. Trust in Him at all times, O People; pour out your hearts to him, for God is our refuge. Two things I wasn’t doing. Trusting and pouring out my heart to God. In my journal I wrote, “Am I not really trusting in You and is that why I can’t just give this stuff up to You? Why am I holding on to these feelings? They should and need to be in the past and let go.”

Mike had asked us to define the qualities in a relationship in which you could feel completely free to share your deepest fears and anxieties. Trust was the first thing we thought of and that was exactly what was missing from my relationship with god. 

Friday presented me with the opportunity to really examine my life and let go of things. I went to the park and stretched out in the sunshine and re-read my testimony I wrote at the end of my freshman year of college. I had added to it slightly as a sophomore but hadn’t touched it in years. I found the file on my computer and found one of my original print outs. I was doing this because one of the things in the book, The Unmistakable Touch of Grace, was to break up your spiritual life into three parts and tell your story … you could share it with someone or just do it for yourself. I had the first two parts written in my testimony from before. But it was the last part, essentially the last 3-4 years of my life that I had not written about. To recap a few things that happened: my grandma passed away from ovarian cancer; I started attending 2fortytwo; my mom was diagnosed with cancer for the second time, ten years after being treated the first time; my brother and cousin both got married; my other grandma broke her ankle which facilitated a move of my grandparents into an assisted living facility; I graduated summa cum laude; my uncle got MRSA pneumonia after having the H1N1 virus and passed away; my aunt was diagnosed with a benign brain tumor that was causing double vision in one eye and she had gamma knife radiation surgery. Wow! So if you have talked to me in the last few years and I seemed distant or lost in my own world it was probably because I was. I wasn’t willing to share my worries, or how much I may have been hurting inside from some of these events. I didn't even want to tell myself so how was I going to tell others.

As I started writing about the last few years, I realized that I was not letting go of the feelings I had about them. All that worry and stress had built upon itself and it was terrible to carry that around. As soon as I let it go and gave it to god, I felt all the pressure release. The burden had been lifted from my shoulders. I am letting go of my burdens giving them to god to carry and worry about. I’m finding that as I let go new things can enter into my life.

At church this Sunday, we sang Overcome. And in the middle the Worship Leader prayed for us all to overcome and let go and heal. Hearing those words definitely made the hairs stand up. Here was my final word – Heal. “We will overcome by the blood of the lamb, and the word of our testimony, everyone overcome.” I had just been reading and adding to my testimony and the idea that we will overcome by the word of our testimony was just amazing. Because it was in writing and dissecting my life that I was able to let go, overcome and heal. Obviously healing is not something that happens overnight and can be a continuing process but being able to let go was HUGE.

To answer the last question from last night's Bible study: On a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being crawling and 10 being giant leaps, how has your relationship with god progressed over the last year? In the last three weeks I would say a 12. And a year ago it may have been a one with any of the middle numbers happening in between that time.



"All authority, every victory is yours"