Forgiveness Can Uncover Deep Wounds You've Ignored

Today I forgave some more people in my life. It was cool I was looking at them in my mind and how I felt about them and it was like these dead stacks of corral, like the tubes of corral, and then the image just faded away and i didn't really see another image but like this feeling, like an aroma, but I didn't smell anything but it was like then sense of it's presence, was there and it was pouring in from the other parts of my life that God has been filling up with his spirit. It's been pretty easy to forgive people up to this point, but now I'm still dealing with some of the pain and dealing with the wanting to protect myself.

Can I believe that God can protect me all the time? Can I see the lie that I am the only one who will take care of me as a lie?

Ashta na ga..... hello tongues!

Yesterday, at 33 Live I was praying for this girl. I was asking God to help her with the walls she's built around her heart and some other things. I didn't know much about her but I knew that these things were applicable. After a couple of sentences I didn't know what else to say but I felt like I had to do something so I started doing this singing thing I do.

I've been doing this things where I sing randomn words, which I guessed were tongues because they weren't words I knew and we have the mind of Christ, so what else could it be?

So I wanted to start doing my singing thing but I just started talking. All these words that i had no idea what they meant poured out of my mouth. It wasn't like they were forcing themselves out of my mouth or like something was controlling it but like these words felt right coming out of my mouth. Like something in me knew that what I was saying was important while my brain had no idea.

At one point I wanted to start crying. Something I was saying was super important for her but since I was speaking in tongues I had no idea what it was.

Now, I'm like addicted to talking in tongues. It's fun. All these years I felt like there was something that wanted to pour out of me and i think this is what it was.

Once, someone told me that speaking in tongues doesn't determine whether you're saved or not, it doesn't mean you're any holier or more righteous, it's just like they discovered ice cream and want to share it with other Christians. And I get it now. It is fun. It doesn't make me more righteous. It's just something fun.

Servolution

The leaders had us find a way to serve two people from the church. One of them was Patty Jennings. I learned today how awesome she is. She is so cute!! The way she says things especially when she's excited is just so adorable. I hope that I can stay in contact with her long after Dibor is over. The great thing about being told to go and bless people is how blessed you get just by watching how the blessing affects the person and the relationship that develops from it. That's what I love about it. The way they talk to me after blessing them. The way they show their affection and desire to talk to me. I get to see a special part of their heart that would take a long time by other means of developing a relationship with them. I want to bless more people to have more connections this way. I think heaven will be a lot like this. You don't know the person very well but then you experience something with them and their hearts open up to you. I have so many friends at New Life that are adults, basically because of helping them. They open their hearts to me and we are genuinely happy to see each other and care about each other.

For example, the other day at church Tigger came running up to me all excited because her husband was coming back from overseas a few days earlier than she expected. You should see this woman. She talks about her husband like they just got off their honeymoon. They have 3 kids and she talks about him like they got married 2 weeks ago. She is so in love with him. And I would not have been the person she ran to, or been able to see that excitement and rejoice with her if I had not helped her move into her home. I would not have the same relationship with her if I hadn't gone to her house to watch the Superbowl. I developed this relationship with her and just by seeing her excitement when she talks to me is all I could ask for. It's so precious to me.

When you serve people and bless them you find a special place in their hearts and it is a wonderful place to be. This is kingdom culture. This is heaven on earth and it beautiful. I hope to have these kinds of relationships all over the world.

I never thought that doing practical things like this would open hearts so much. I always thought it was being a listening ear or helping them solve their problems, like emotional/relationship problems. But to my surprise people really value these kinds of things and don't take them lightly. They aren't suspicious about your motives or thinking you are faking about caring about them. It's astonishing.

The Past

So the last couple of weeks I've been reading The Sacred Romance. It basically talks about how much God loves us like a lover would and how his enemy (the devil) has seduced us away from him. And that the enemy uses our moments of pain to feed us lies that God doesn't loves us, that He is not looking out for our best and that we have to put on our fake selves for the world. That our deep desire for love only gets in the way and that duty and discipline are the most important things.

To be honest, I have been having a hard time reading this book. It is bringing up past feelings of hurt, loneliness, and rejection. Being the eldest child puts you in a position to have to experience certain things in life on your own and/or without much direction.I think pretty much everyone has had these times in their life, but for me I believe a lot of it was because of being the oldest of a single mother. So, I experienced these moments of feeling like people were thinking I was nothing and only a nuisance (not everyone, but a few people) so to fight off these feelings of insecurity, incompetence, and vulnerability I chose to find a way to protect myself, to defend myself. I thought thoroughly why I did certain things, why I was right and others who might accuse me, or laugh at me, were wrong.

One thing that really hurts when I think about it is that I realized that when I was younger, my need to be strong and prove myself came from, mostly, not having a father. I don't blame anyone for that, but it affects me anyway. I felt my vulnerability and tried to find away to fight the fear by trying to be strong, or I think actually my goal was to be tough, calloused. As I got older and started to see that all that was hurting me I started to let it go, but the feeling of vulnerability was still there. I would think "if some guy tried to hurt me, I would have no one to scare him off. If I had a boyfriend I would have no father to scare him to treat me the way he should."It hurts when I see a girl get that sparkle in her eye when she thinks about her dad protecting her like that. I don't have that. I've always been the strong on in my life, and I'm not really all that strong. I can be calloused.

I found my way to find approval and recognition was having a sound argument. Logical explain why I was right or to

I'm not saying that my experiences or what hurt me justifies why I do what I do. It explains why I do it and I know I need to let God heal the pain and let the past go.