"She can be silent because she has much to say and has learned through it all that deep silence speaks." ~ Richard Wurmbrand
Observe how the lilies of the field grow; they do not toil nor do they spin, yet I say to you that not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these. “But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, will He not much more clothe you? You of little faith! Matthew 6:28-30
At the core of Christianity is relationship, first with the Lord, “Eternal life is to know you, the only true God and Jesus Christ Your Son” (John 17:3). Then we have relationship with one another, and the Bible has a lot to say concerning our earthly relationships. We all seem to struggle so much in this area. This world has been plagued with relational issues and tragedy from the day Cain killed his brother, Abel.
I’ve learned the hard way about relationships. I have been involved in some relationships that set me back spiritually, emotionally and at times financially. Understanding relational dynamics, living by the golden rule and having proper boundaries are vital to healthy and fruitful relationships. But I found there is something even more fundamental to relationships. One of the greatest secrets to having healthy relationship with others is having a healthy relationship with your self!
There is a saying, “Hurt people hurt people.” It is true. If you are unhealthy in your self-perception and if you do not love yourself properly then you will never perceive others right nor be able to love them properly. Even Jesus said, “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
I believe one of the issues that plagued Cain was a sense of insignificance. When he brought his offering before the Lord that day and it was not received it set off a chain of events that led to him murder his brother. As we have learned in our Monday Bible study that in reality, it was a door for him to get free, but he refused to go through the door.
I too spent a lot of time thinking I did not really matter. It is an issue I have faced since being a girl. I was a girl in a family that valued boys. I was a girl with a call on my life but was never allowed to explore anything outside of traditional domestic roles and I had times where I almost hated my own brother too because I was told that I could only do certain things because I was female, including things like speaking. Just like Cain, my brother isn’t the one that told me this. He isn’t the one that censored me at all. I have such a hard time speaking corporately but I grew up not being allowed to speak in church other than to other girls and to children. I was not allowed to have one on one conversations with men or speak in a corporate service. I was not allowed to pray at the dinner table if there was a male present. I grew up knowing my thoughts certainly did not matter to my dad, who made the rules for our family and for our church since he was the pastor. It bred a lot of rebellion in me because I have always had something to say. When you can’t speak you learn other ways to communicate so I wrote, but it is not the same…especially when I moved away and saw that other women were allowed an actual voice…even in church.
Insignificance. It is something I constantly have to keep in check. Throughout my young adult life, I would hear of a friend’s success or an important happening in which I was not involved and it just drove home the fact that I did not matter. I believed I missed my chance to matter and do something special. I think the fear of being so insignificant that we will be forgotten or feeling that we are nothing to others plagues all of us at times. And that is at the root of much relational problems and tragedy in the world.
My dad died when I was a teenager but some of the things I learned in those early years proved to be very hard to unlearn….if I even have. As a consequence of feeling insignificant I have spent much of my life measuring myself by what I perceived other people thought of me. Hard way to live day to day and it was slowly killing me. We all have the God given need to be both fully known and fully loved – nothing hidden, but the Lord Himself must first answer that and He has, in Christ (John 14:9-11).
It was when I began to truly know God as my Father and when I truly found out His thoughts about ME… as His child, as a female, as one He called before birth…that I was able to overcome the fear of being insignificant and forgotten. The more I know the Father, the more I know and love my true self. God has destined us all for the same baptism of identity and love that Jesus experienced (Mark 1:9-11). There are no insignificant people in His family and we all are worth knowing, being celebrated and loved.
(will finish later. gotta get some work done)
Fully known, fully loved and having a great day!
As I entered into the 38th day of my personal fast and the first day of our corporate fast I did so with a prayer that God reveal Himself to me in greater ways. I want to hear His voice all the time. I want to be so close to Him that I can hear His heartbeat and He can hear mine. I want something even closer. I want to have the same heart. It says in the Word to write down the vision. So for this last part of my fast I write down these things that are my goals and prayers.
– I want healing in my emotions. They are all over the place and my feelings are getting hurt way too easily. I pray that I can focus instead of on me onto God so negative emotions have far, far less power. I want to flow in love, forgiveness, grace.
– I pray for miracles and healing for my church family, both individually and corporately. I pray for unity and ask the Lord to begin that in me. Convict we when I breed disunity in any way. I ask for healing in finances, health, relationships.
– I ask for salvations.
– I ask for open doors and new opportunities to love. I pray that God works out what is on my heart regarding ministry opportunities. I just want to love people.
This verse came as such an encouragement to me this morning:
Psalm 27:13 “I would have lost heart, unless I had believed that I would see the goodness (same Hebrew word for “glory”) of the LORD In the land of the living.” NKJV
Also I received this good Word today via email:
SMALL STRAWS IN A SOFT WIND by Marsha Burns — 2/7/11:
Be filled again with My Spirit. The days ahead will be filled with My Glory in the practical and commonplace things of life. Maintain awareness, and see My manifest presence in unexpected ways, says the Lord. Take nothing for granted. My glory is all around you!
Psalms 125:2 As the mountains surround Jerusalem, so the LORD surrounds His people from this time forth and forever.
“If you knew that the Lord would return tomorrow, would you feel cheated today? If so, that which you feel cheated out of has already become an idol.”
This song is really speaking to me this morning. I love the Scriptures.
Do you ever feel discouraged? Discouragement is something I find myself battling lately. The Bible says that David dealt with this too. To work through it he “encouraged himself in the Lord.” I’ve been desperately trying to learn how that works. If you know please tell me but in the meantime found this interesting.
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The following comes from daily devotional email from Rick Warren:
Discouragement is curable. Whenever I get discouraged, I head straight to Nehemiah. This great leader of ancient Israel understood there were four reasons for discouragement.
First, you get fatigued — You simply get tired as the laborers did in Nehemiah 4:10. We’re human beings and we wear out. You cannot burn the candle at both ends. So if you’re discouraged, it may be you don’t have to change anything. You just need a vacation! Sometimes the most spiritual thing you can do is go to bed.
Second, you get frustrated — Nehemiah says there was rubble all around, so much that it was getting in the way of rebuilding the wall. Do you have rubble in your life? Have you noticed that anytime you start doing something new, the trash starts piling up?
If you don’t clean it out periodically, it’s going to stop your progress. You can’t avoid it, so you need to learn to recognize it and dispose of it quickly so you don’t lose focus on your original intention.
What is the rubble in your life? I think rubble is the trivial things that waste your time and energy and prevent you from accomplishing what God has called you to do.
Third, you think you’ve failed — Nehemiah’s people were unable to finish their task as quickly as originally planned and, as a result, their confidence collapsed. They were thinking, “We were stupid to think we could ever rebuild this wall.”
But you know what I do when I don’t reach a goal on time? I just set a new goal. I don’t give up. Everybody fails. Everybody does foolish things. So the issue is not that you failed – it’s how you respond to your failure.
Do you give in to self-pity? Do you start blaming other people? Do you start complaining that it’s impossible? Or, do you refocus on God’s intentions and start moving again?
Finally, when you give in to fear, you get discouraged — Nehemiah 4 suggests the people most affected by fear are those who hang around negative people. If you’re going to control the negative thoughts in your life, you’ve got to get away from negative people as much as you can.
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So may or may not work but think I will give it a shot… going to start by reading Nehemiah and planning a cool vacation (and soon).
When Jesus told Peter, “If you love me, feed my sheep,” Peter had just denied Jesus. Can you imagine Peter’s feelings of guilt? I’m sure he considered ending all ministry.
How I hear that today: Jesus says to us, “If you love Me, FORGET the mistakes and failures of the past and focus on what I asked you to do!” (Of course, I’m not talking about short-circuiting repentance)
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“Moses said to the people, ‘Do not be afraid, stand firm, and see the deliverance that the Lord will accomplish for you today; for the Egyptians whom you see today you shall never see again. The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to keep still’.” Exodus 14:13-14 (NRSV).
We all experience fear, and maybe the paradox is we cannot be truly courageous without fear. Fear is necessary for us to do anything truly heroic. If it is within your comfort zone, isn’t it just ordinary? I believe we cannot express faith without fear. It has to be there.
Here is the thing, when I allow the fear to take me into self-pity or frozen states (and I do this more than you might realize), I give away the opportunity at conquering the fear with the help of a holy and all-powerful God behind me. And by standing firm I do not beleive Moses meant to freeze in fear. By these actions, I give away the opportunity to exercise faith. I have allowed the wrong thing to control. I find myself praying quite often that the Lord will take away all fear but I am learning that I should and must do my part to disarm the fear itself. To give into fear and allow it to control me is sin but in the Word I am told that God provides a way out; a way to flee from sin. How do I live without this sin controlling my life? I beleive this is done in at least one of two ways because fear can manifest as a result of both the inappropriate and appropriate.
First, I can approach the problem or issue in a fear-less sort of way: to be fearless, i.e. denying the fear, but truthfully so. There are truly many fears I have that are ridiculous in the face of reason. I must acknowledge that I am allowing the unreasonable and not using logical reason that God has provided. Having acknowledged this I then must retrain my minds to think differently. I believe the goal should be to quickly recognize these fears and quash them immediately. To sit around and think on them or to worry or obsess it pretty much making an idol of them. Quash them and focus on the Lord or on His children. Get my mind off of myself. I have learned that if I deliberately move away from this type of fear that He will not disappoint in strengthening me.
Second, I can approach it in a manner that just fears things less. Maybe the fear is an appropriate fear. I must move all the while and refuse to be paralyzed by fear but do so acknowledging that what I am fearing is actually appropriate to fear. I just must conform the fear so my actions in light of it are manifested healthily. I need to be open and honest about it and move through it anyway…trusting again in God for my strength. This of itself is to me real courage.
Being fearless and/or just fearing less. God is with me in these pursuits. It’s God’s will that I am not afraid.
I have been struggling with loneliness. My circle of friends keeps getting smaller and smaller. I wanted to backpeddle and see if I could fix that but I didn’t even know why it happened or how to approach correctly or even if it truly was about me so much. I have had to stop trying to figure it out and leave it as one of those things to work through trusting in God and His plan.
I was told by a wise someone that I should look at this time of solitude as an opportunity. Focus on opportunity rather than struggle. Look on the bright side (as I always say to my kids). She said to very deliberately turn my lonely feelings into an attitude of getting a chance for aloneness…or being alone with God. Like a kid from a large family getting to spend that prized alone time with a parent. She said from a different lens the painful, isolating times of loneliness will draw me closer to God and that will help make me a woman who has something new inside to give to others.
That counsel reminded me of something. There is a story by Marjorie Williams that kind of depicts this truth. It’s called The Velveteen Rabbit. In one passage the toy rabbit and the toy horse are talking to each other:
“What is real?” asked the stuffed rabbit to the stuffed horse. “Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?”
“Real isn’t how you are made,” said the stuffed horse. “It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but really loves you, then you become real.”
“Does it hurt?” asked the stuffed rabbit.
“Sometimes,” said the stuffed horse, for he was always truthful. “When you are real, though, you don’t mind so much.”
“Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,” he asked, “or bit by bit?”
“It doesn’t happen all at once,” said the stuffed horse. “You become real. It takes a long time and a lot of pain. That’s why it doesn’t often happen to people who break easily, or who have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and are very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all because once you are real, you can’t ever be ugly except to people who don’t really understand.”
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I so want to have something to give and someday impact someone’s life for eternity. Perhaps in this season if I can take this advice and focus on the opportunity rather than the struggle there will be even a slight movement toward being used of God to fulfill His purposes in my life. I pray I am one that doesn’t break easily and one that doesn’t have to be carefully kept. I pray that the reward is great in the eternal sense. In a world of imaginations and distortions, I pray I will be real. I pray that even if I appear shabby to the world, I will have the inward beauty of one who has been with Jesus. I pray that the pain of loneliness will during this time turn into something real on the inside of me that looks even on the outside exactly like love.
This walk is an interesting one. Wouldn’t call it easy but I sure wouldn’t trade it.
Last night I went to bed with such pain in my heart. Someone repeated some of my words very much out of context…using chosen parts of a question I asked to create the impression that I implied something that wasn’t in my heart at all. It provoked confusion and anger unnecessarily. Why? What is going on? Do I fight this kind of thing. I don’t know — so I asked Abba Father (the only daddy I have) for some help in dealing with this because I have no one else. God gave me two things over these last few hours. First was a Word to me almost in my sleep but like not….hard to describe. The second He sent in a Word from a friend.
To me: You are on a path and there are many that would try to stop you. They are not even aware they are being used to do this. They don’t know your path. They don’t know your potential in Me. They are as a tree that was planted to cover my path for you. Go around. Do not hesitate. Do not stop to look or listen or feel. Do not stop to smell or taste. Your fruit is not at this tree or growing from it. Your fruit is up the path, up ahead. Go around and stay on your path keeping your eyes only on me. Move toward the promises- My promises to you.
Then I received this message this morning from a friend. Just felt he was to give it to me: I see FLOWERS lots of FLOWERS Melissa. yellow flowers which represent PROMISES of God soon to come to pass. believe Him for the promises, Melissa, every accurate word spoken over you is also a covenant. remind Him of His word. loved ones, ministries, provision, etc. also i see a full plate of food in front of you. i think the full plate of food was the promise of provision for you. AND a feast of His word also Melissa. Yes you’re going to have the richness of His goodness in both provision and His word.blessings
Thanks Abba for Your love and encouragement and Your faith in me!!!
If anyone knows Melissa... 
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