Healing...

You know, I never thought there would be a day when I could say that there are certain areas in my life being healed. I always had come to the conclusion that it just wouldn't happen for me, mostly because I saw it in everyone else but never saw it happening in me.

Well this week remarkable things have begun to happen. Saturday, one of the guys I go to school with mentioned a gifting of the Holy Spirit, that had hurt me years ago. Not that the gifting itself hurt me, but I saw this gifting manufactured and toyed with and played around with, that I began to reject it being within my own life. I just wanted to be me without that gifting. And so I lived fine without it, now if someone else had that gifting and walked in it, there was always this little jolt inside of me going, 'I kinda wanna walk in that again.' But for the most part, I stayed far away from it because I didn't want to be hurt again. I associated this marvelous gifting of the Holy Spirit with pain. Well Saturday when my friend mentioned this gifting, my Spirit literally leaped within me. Yesterday I began talking to my mom and just laid it all out, everything from this rejection of this gifting to this whole other issue. I just laid it out on the floor, even though, mind you, I've also been hurting inside over some things my parents have done.

But I can feel the healing. I mean I told my mom yesterday, "I rejected a gift because I associated it with that church, where all this stuff went down, and where we really came out hurt, whether we realized it or not." My little sisters, 14 and 16 years old, just realized they too had rejected this gifting, and they were hardly impacted by the whole church deal. Goes to show how the enemy really can work and make you think that it's okay to walk away from something, from something God-given. I can feel the healing in that area, the desire to walk in that gifting so much stronger than ever before. I can feel the healing in my relationship with my parents, in the fact that I came to realize some deception that had been playing out, and I came absolutely clean with everything, to feel her forgiveness and love just sweep over me. Though it still is a struggle, I believe there is a beginning in my healing.

My point isn't big, I basically just wanna share what God is doing. I never expected it to happen, I never expected to want this gifting, to want to walk in it for what it is, not because it was manufactured or made up. I never expected to begin to work towards forgiveness with my parents and actually begin praying God's will into the situation, instead of mine. My point is God is good. He works in ways we do not see. He begins healing when we are oblivious to it, when we feel like it's just more pain. He is I am! He is the Almighty God. My God is well able to do above, beyond, all that we can ever imagine. And He is able to heal my broken heart! I know this to be true now. And I'm so glad He showed that to me!

Writing on the Wall

Yesterday I was reminded of BarlowGirl's song "I Believe in Love." In one of the youtube videos I've seen, Alyssa talks about this book they read. This group of people went into a concentration camp after a war, and in one of the cells, it said, "I believe in the sun even when it's not shining. I believe in love even when I don't feel it. And I believe in God even when He is silent."

I've been going through some stuff lately. I've been trying to hold on so tight, I've been trying to pick my feet back up and find purpose in all this. And after I watched that video again, God gave me this idea, "Why not write on the wall?" Now obviously I'm not going to write on my physical wall, but I have a new wall, my "W.O.W." wall.

Every time I hear "writing on the wall" I've been reminded of this guy who wrote on his cell wall. Who knows what he had left, really? What was his purpose? Was he going to make it through the week? The day even? Who really knows? But he had wrote that on his wall, as a reminder. And so my new wall, is going to become a place of encouragement, a place where God has spoken to me, so that in these moments of despair, in these moments of high stress, in those moments of craziness, I can look on that wall and remember who I am. I can remember where my hope is. I can remember WHO I serve.

Renewing Your Mind

You know I found it interesting the other day when I read Romans 12:2 for the millionth time.
Romans 12:2, “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is – His good, pleasing and perfect will.”
I've read this verse so many times and honestly the only thing that registered to me was the "Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world." But when you look into the rest of the verse, it says to be transformed by the renewing of your mind. THEN you will be able to test and approve what God's will is.

This verse has taken root in my heart lately as I've begun to take captive those negative thoughts that I have allowed to become higher than Christ, I have started to realize that really what is happening is a renewing of my mind. I truly believe that this renewing of my mind is really taking my selfish mind, MY personal mind, and letting it become like Christ's mind. In place of my personal, selfish mind, I allow Christ's mind to be my mind.

You know the bracelets WWJD? What would Jesus do? I wanna change them to say WWJT. What would Jesus think? I mean really our thoughts provoke our behaviour. There's a verse somewhere that talks about out of the overflow of our heart the mouth speaks. What is in your mind? What are you thinking about? What are you dwelling on? Because what you are dwelling on will most likely be what your behaviour is showing. If you are showing negative behaviour maybe it's time to look at your thinking to see what is going on. More importantly what would Jesus be thinking in a situation when things got a little bit tough for Him? How would He react? Would He find positive in it or would He complain about it and be negative towards it?

The next part of that verse says, "then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is." Wow! When we have a renewed mind, then we will be able to test and approve what God's will is. When we have a renewed mind, a Christ like mind, we will know the mind of Christ, and therefore when situations arise where we have to make a decision we can make a good decision because we have the mind of Christ and we will KNOW what His will is.