October 24 2015

October 24 2015 Greetings My Friend Our faith journey is a long winding journey. I keep pointing a friend back to Jesus. I hear him tell me he is talking to God. I pray constantly to God asking me to direct this young man. I want to tell him to do things a certain way, ways that work for me. The thing is my ways may not be what speaks to him. I go back to the analogy that I am a seed planter and someone else may water the Word in his life. In the end God will be the one who will make the connection. As he struggles to understand things he buried long ago and have now cropped up again in his life I need to realize that part of the process is dealing with old issues no matter how unpleasant. A divorce brought all of the pain of the past out in the open and he is struggling to let go again. God taught me to remember. I began my remember journey with a few forays into past hurts. I needed to acknowledge them to understand that I had a part in the hurt done to me as well. I recall recounting a few painful incidents to God and crying. One day I heard God tell me to pray for this person and not ask for revenge. It was so hard to be honest because I had been wronged in a grievous way. About the only way I could pray for this person was lift up his name and move on. There were times I cried as I mentioned his name. Those times I could feel God holding me tenderly. I felt like He put me on his huge lap and patted me. I sensed He was crying for my hurt too. Slowly I felt the hurt leave me. I felt God giving me a final pat and then telling me to get up and go and do. For me I needed to be heard. In the world people told me it was in my mind, that those things did not really happen along with few other things denying that my feelings were real. When I finally felt heard I slowly was able to let go of pain and enter into life again. My abuser kept finding ways to stay involved in my life which meant I often was going back to hurt. It was hard to leave the past in the past when in life I was made to be the problem over and over. After years of trying with counseling and praying God laid it on my heart to ask my doctor for medicine that would help me. I worried this to death then I took the medicine and at this point I could finally put the past back in the past. As I looked back at this whole process I saw that years had gone by where I would move forward to fall backwards again. As I walk with this young man today I need to realize that his journey is not a quick fix and it may take him years to find the healing he desperately needs. I want his hurt to go away yesterday but in reality it will take time. He tells me he is praying and I find some comfort. I realize that I will need to keep pointing him back to the one great healer, Jesus. Today as I look back on our conversation I understand that God will never go against His Word. My next step is to bring up the need to follow God through the Bible. The Holy Spirit often impresses certain passages on my heart. Those are the passages I find myself referring to as I struggle. The first part of my journey was learning to remember the times God was there and not the pain. Each time God walked me away from trouble I needed to remember those moments. Slowly I was learning that remembering God’s healing in my life and I was letting go of past hurt. God taught me to be thankful and as I thanked God for more and more I kept finding a wholeness and the bitterness of pain did not rear itself as often. I am reminded again that we enter a journey that will last a lifetime when we ask Jesus into our hearts. God is not a God of quick fixes but of ever lasting changes. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet