"It Was Then That I Carried You"

After the spotlight turned on in my heart and mind, that my life needed considerable redirection, and I progressed on the journey towards mending the fragmented pieces of my body and spirit; I realized I could not do this on my own. I felt I was too scared, too adrift, too closed up to spirituality and the church. The one thing that desperation triggered in me was getting me to pray again with hope. I do not believe I said a sincere prayer for myself in a long time. I had cried out in heartache, but an immense part of the heartache was the real belief that my prayer went unheard, and God was not there, and was even wondering if he even exists.
As I wrote in an earlier blog post "Battlefield of The Mind" one of the first actions I took was mending a relationship I had with a women I refer to as "Sunshine". She was, and still is, a beautiful woman of faith, and has a life dedicated to serving her Savior, her children, her spouse, her loved ones, and her church. The twelve steps in recovery programs share a common ninth step that talks about the mending of relationships that will help me clarify something I hold to be true. It states "Make direct amends with such people wherever possible, except when to doing so would injure them or others." I just feel the need to share this because I have learned that not everyone in our life is safe to our spirit or other's spirits to make amends with. The Bible teaches, "I ask you to forgive your brothers the sins and the wrongs they committed in treating you so badly.’ Now please forgive the sins of the servants of the God of your father. I would love to share "Sunshine's" life verse with you because it exemplifies what she taught me. 
"Let us not grow weary in doing good for at the proper time we will reap the harvest if we do not give up." 
By sharing my story, my journey, my battles, my victories, and my now my walk with the Lord; that I never imagined, so many of my fears, anxieties, symptoms, pain have subsided. I encourage you to do the same if you feel called.

There is a man and author named Rick Warren ( www.rickwarren.org ) who talks about forgiveness that I would be honored to share with you.

Why Should You Forgive?

BY RICK WARREN — OCTOBER 18, 2013

1

“The servant’s master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go.”(Matthew 18:27 NIV)

God’s Word gives us three reasons why we have to let go of our hurt and resentment and why we have to forgive. We’ve got to release it instead of rehearsing it. There are three reasons we must forgive.

1. Because God forgives you.
   In Matthew 18, Jesus tells the story of a king who forgives his servant. Verse 27 says, “The servant’s master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go” (NIV). Just as the king canceled the debt of this servant, God sent Jesus Christ to pay for your debt. Everything you’ve ever done wrong in your life has already been paid for. Jesus took your rap. He paid your jail time. He took your offense and paid the wages of sin. Jesus Christ died for all of your sins.

2. Because resentment is self-torture.
   It is a self-inflicted wound. Whenever you’re resentful, it always hurts you more than the person you’re bitter against. In fact, while you’re still worrying about something that happened years ago, they’ve forgotten about it! Your past is past, and it can’t hurt you any more unless you hold on to it.

3. Because you need forgiveness every day.
   The Bible teaches very clearly that we cannot receive what we are unwilling to give. Do you want to be forgiven? The Bible says you need to be forgiving.

Forgiveness is a lifestyle. It’s not just something you do one time. You need it every day of your life. You’ve got to ask for forgiveness. You’ve got to accept forgiveness from God and from others. And you’ve got to offer forgiveness. Forgiveness must be continual. It must be enjoyed, and it must be employed.

Talk It Over

• Who is the first person that comes to mind if you were asked about the greatest hurt in your life?
• Do you ever find yourself reacting to somebody because they remind you of somebody else?

When I was a young girl we went to my big brothers' basketball games at our high school. I was a very charismatic girl, and loved to watch others who shared this trait. I also possessed a special "girly side" to my personality so I enjoyed watching the cheerleaders dance. There was one particular cheerleader who always stood out to me, so I watched her closely. I really looked up to my brothers, and was invested in their lives as a girl, so when they brought home their high school yearbooks I always read them cover to cover, innocently picturing my life at that age. The cheerleader I watched dance at the games graced the yearbook with her beautiful smile, and she was the Homecoming Queen, the only Homecoming Queen I had seen at the time. I immediately knew I wanted a crown like she wore (again this was a youngster's imagination).

About ten years went by, and many trials had entered my life. When Facebook exploded into the world I saw her face, with the same smile, appear on my friends suggestions. Me being the curious person that I am clicked on her profile, and saw she had a blog. I reviewed it, and really admired her story, just as I admired her dance. Being the extroverted person that I am, I ended up sending her a little message saying that I really appreciated her as as a young girl.

As it turns out we ended up exchanging emails, and began a long email relationship for a couple years, which turned in to phone calls and text messages, and then weekends spent together (even though we live in different states), and then the blessing of her presence at my wedding. "K" is a devout Mormon. She has been so consistent in her love for her children, her love for her husband, her love for her family, and those important in her life. She has dedicated her life to service. When I felt so "dirty" and I shared my pitfalls with her, she commonly said "My opinion of you has not changed at all".

One obstacle I had with religions in general was the conservative aspect to their teachings. Even my politics were extremely Liberal. I could not imagine being in a church that did not support my secular beliefs. Many churches, of many religions, not just my religion of the Christian faith and the Protestant church, tend to bend towards more conservative views. At that time I completely did not believe in "Organized Religion". I believed it was man-made, not what Jesus spoke about, and a way for religious organizations to make money to fund conservative politics.

"K" taught me a lot about organized religion, even though our beliefs are different in many ways. One of her her personal life verses is, "And now, my sons, remember, remember that it is upon the rock of our Redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of God, that ye must build your foundation; that when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, yea, his shafts in the whirlwind, yea, when all his hail and his mighty storm shall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you to drag you down to the gulf of misery and endless wo, because of the rock upon which ye are built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall". Organized religion provides places for community and support. "K" offered me so much support, and still does. We do not share churches, or even many of the same religious verses, but we both share the belief in the importance of a higher power than us. One thing that is common in her life verse, and another life verse is the shared truth that the Lord can be your rock. The Bible says, "Then the Lord said, “There is a place near me where you may stand on a rock. When my glory passes by, I will put you in a cleft in the rock and cover you with my hand". 

When I was in counseling after my abusive relationship.The Lord placed me in the office of a counselor who's walk is quite extraordinary. She was a fun woman with fiery red hair, colorful shirts, and always sat with her feet up on the couch, shoes off, exposing her comical socks. I knew this was the perfect therapist for me. Each time I entered her office I never knew what I would say, this often intimidated me. She was wonderful about engaging me in conversation so that I would open up, without even realizing it. One day I spoke about how I was too angry with the church to attend services. When I was in eighth grade my father, and several other pastors went through an experience that wrongfully tossed us out of our church family. Later in my life there were two instances where a pastor inappropriately touched my a friends body, and then made sexually suggestive remarks about my body when I was on a church sponsored trip to a lake. There were also a few other stories that left scars that I will not allude to in order to respect the privacy of those I love.

What I heard next I did not expect, and I would think broke the "rules" of therapist confidentiality. I was  basically "word vomiting" my anger, and she broke out, "Kayla! You need to go to church!" Then she told this story:

She said she was a lesbian and she grew up a Catholic. She said she always had a deep love for the Lord. She said even though she shares a closeness with her family, there is still a crack in the bond, since she came out. She said once she spoke out about her sexuality her particular Catholic church did not accept her lifestyle, or walk with the Lord whatsoever. They ended up excommunicating her from their congregation. For any reader who us not familiar with excommunication, it simply means to ban her from attending their church. She said, "Kayla. I was angry. I was so, so angry, but nothing was going to stop me from singing praises to my God". Even complete rejection and shaming from "her people". She then said, "I was ashamed, and it took me time to build up the courage, but I prayed for strength, and I knew God was bigger than my shame and anger, and the people who rejected me. Now I enter the Catholic church about once a month, or as often as I can. I sit in the back and I sing to Him. I sing His praises. He is worthy of our attendance".

I was in church that Sunday.

After I had been attending a particular Presbyterian church which was the first church I felt "at home" at in all my life I really yearned to meet a pastor who I felt spoke to my heart, other than my own father (who is a pastor of children and family ministries). There was a pastor who was also charismatic just as mentioned "K" was. "Sunshine" had also spoken of how much she admired him, and my parents had said I could really benefit from hearing his words. I ended up asking to meet with him to talk about my battle with SLA. In the start of our meeting he shared his personal journeys and it was the first time a pastor seemed "human" to me. I had met several pastors since my dad was in the ministry, and heard many stories, but his story just touched home in my heart. I do not know his whole history of course, but what he shared was God's gift to me. He is truly a pastor who exemplifies what Jesus teaches. This pastor listened to my brokenness and guided me with a servants heart. He ended up leading my husband and I in premarital counseling as we prepared our hearts and minds for marriage. We laughed because he said we are one of the more unique couples he has counseled (a future blog). His life verse is "You make known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand".

I now will give a quick biography of a man who's words I have turned to throughout my journey.

C.S.Lewis was raised in a church-going family in the Church of Ireland. He became an atheist at 15, though he later described his young self as being paradoxically "very angry with God for not existing".

His early separation from Christianity began when he started to view his religion as a chore and as a duty; around this time, he also gained an interest in the occult, as his studies expanded to include such topics. Lewis quoted Lucretius (De rerum natura, 5.198–9) as having one of the strongest arguments for atheism:

Nequaquam nobis divinitus esse paratam
Naturam rerum; tanta stat praedita culpa

Had God designed the world, it would not be
A world so frail and faulty as we see.

Lewis's interest in the works of George MacDonald was part of what turned him from atheism. This can be seen particularly well through this passage in Lewis's The Great Divorce, chapter nine, when the semi-autobiographical main character meets MacDonald in Heaven:

... I tried, trembling, to tell this man all that his writings had done for me. I tried to tell how a certain frosty afternoon atLeatherhead Station when I had first bought a copy of Phantastes (being then about sixteen years old) had been to me what the first sight of Beatrice had been to Dante: Here begins the new life. I started to confess how long that Life had delayed in the region of imagination merely: how slowly and reluctantly I had come to admit that his Christendom had more than an accidental connexion with it, how hard I had tried not to see the true name of the quality which first met me in his books is Holiness.

He slowly re-embraced Christianity, influenced by arguments with his Oxford colleague and friend J. R. R. Tolkien, whom he seems to have met for the first time on 11 May 1926, and by the book The Everlasting Man by G. K. Chesterton. He fought greatly up to the moment of his conversion, noting that he was brought into Christianity like a prodigal, "kicking, struggling, resentful, and darting his eyes in every direction for a chance to escape."He described his last struggle in Surprised by Joy:

You must picture me alone in that room in Magdalen, night after night, feeling, whenever my mind lifted even for a second from my work, the steady, unrelenting approach of Him whom I so earnestly desired not to meet. That which I greatly feared had at last come upon me. In the Trinity Term of 1929 I gave in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps, that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England.

After his conversion to theism in 1929, Lewis converted to Christianity in 1931, following a long discussion and late-night walk with his close friends Tolkien and Hugo Dyson. He records making a specific commitment to Christian belief while on his way to the zoo with his brother. He became a member of the Church of England – somewhat to the disappointment of Tolkien, who had hoped that he would join the Catholic Church.^{[33][page needed]}

Lewis was a committed Anglican who upheld a largely orthodox Anglican theology, though in his apologetic writings, he made an effort to avoid espousing any one denomination. In his later writings, some believe that he proposed ideas such as purification of venial sins after death in purgatory (The Great Divorce and Letters to Malcolm) and mortal sin (The Screwtape Letters), which are generally considered to be Roman Catholic teachings, although they are also widely held in Anglicanism (particularly in high church Anglo-Catholic circles). Regardless, Lewis considered himself an entirely orthodox Anglican to the end of his life, reflecting that he had initially attended church only to receive communion and had been repelled by the hymns and the poor quality of the sermons. He later came to consider himself honoured by worshipping with men of faith who came in shabby clothes and work boots and who sang all the verses to all the hymns

The Bible that I currently turn to and read is the C.S. Lewis Bible. Throughout this particular Bible are excerpts inserted into the sidebars of the texts from Lewis's writings that coincide with the topics in the Bible. It humanizes the Bible for me, and his experiences and personal wisdom he shares helps me relate more and clarifies the Biblical passages.

My family has always been key voices of wise counsel in my story and journey. I will talk about them throughout this blog. Here are my mom's my dad's and my 91 year old grandmother's life verses:

Dad: "For I, The Lord your God, hold your right hand, it is I who say to you, 'Fear not, I will help'.

Mom: You hem me in behind and before and you lay your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain. Where can I go from your Spirit. Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast. If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,”even the darkness will not be dark to you, the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you. For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made,your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. How precious to me are your thoughts, God How vast is the sum of them! Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand—when I awake, I am still with you.

Grandma's: " Cast your cares on the Lord and he will sustain you; he will never let the righteous fall". "And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast".


Now for my final testimony. When I was finally at my moment of surrender. I called out to God in desperation, "SAVE ME! I NEED YOU! I AM DONE! I CANNOT DO THIS ANYMORE! LET ME FEEL YOU! I NEED TO FEEL YOU! CAN YOU HERE ME?" I was alone in my old apartment. What happened to me is very hard to detail, and some do not believe my testimony, and that is okay, because it is my own truth. I fell on my knees to the floor. I felt this wave come over me. I felt a warmth, a rush, a peace, an overwhelm; yet a calm, a presence, a strength, a courage, a healing, a comfort, a journey, a battlefield, a shield, a redemption, a warriors heart, a hero's fortitude; and only a  Lord's presence.

From that day on everything changed. I  imperfect and flawed and battle; but now I walk in His footsteps and I know He carries me when I am at my darkest.

More to come.