If I could only speak one truth about my time here in this season at the Center for Global Action, it would be that it is a constant uphill climb. A few weeks ago I wrote about the effect of shame in my life and ever since I have been taking my thoughts and habits that I have formed over the years around shame and dumping it all at the feet of God. My heart and mind felt so overwhelmed with how I had been and am currently being impacted because of shame.
Last week I was finally starting to feel like I could breathe again and look back at the amount of growth I could see in myself from only those few weeks. I thought that I was going to get to sit back and coast for the rest of the year and then God reminded me of my own words that I spoke over myself every day before I left, “I am not going to CGA to sit idle, but to push myself in ways that I never could anywhere else.” So here I am again, with a wounded heart and an unsettled mind.
During one of my classes last week we were learning how to counsel others. We practiced by putting ourselves up for example. I volunteered at one point, thinking that nothing would really come of it. During that ten minutes, my past pains and the trash of my life were churned up in ways that I would never have thought possible. My first thought was horror that all of this was set out for my peers to see.
At one point I couldn’t even form words for how I felt. So I just sat and stared at the words written on the board, with tears running down my face. After all, I had no concept that most of these things I had been through were in my memory or effecting me at all. Once again I was overwhelmed by the amount of work that I have waiting in front of me.
Parts of me want to hide it, to stuff it away back in the little locked box in my mind that it came from. Another part wants to rage, against the pain and injustice done to me, to burn it away so that it can’t touch me anymore. But then there is another part of me that knows it can never be so. The gentle tug in my spirit that God wants to heal me of this and all I need to do is hold His hand.
AMAZING. The only word to describe such a Being that hurts when we hurt, still loves those that hurt us, and continues to love us when we hurt others. That instead of recoiling away from the black thorns and tangles of my mind, He dives into it. All for the purpose of my healing and being closer to Him.
Now as I sit here with the past before me, I see Him winding through my pain, anger, grief, resentment, fear, and shame once more. And I know that a bright and beautiful sunrise will greet me on the other side.
“It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.”-Galatians 5:1 (NIV)
“If the storms of life they come and the road ahead gets steep, I will lift these hands in faith. I will believe. I’ll remind myself of all that you’ve done and the life I have because of your son.”-Love Came Down, Kari Jobe
