Transition, growth, and the heart

I have been back in the states almost 3 months now and I can’t help but think of South Africa, my kids there, and the friends who truly became family to me. I also made a huge move and transition to Redding, California. THAT came up rather suddenly and I haven’t regretted a minute of it. I have never been more challenged to change, grow, and heal in my whole entire life. It hasn’t come easily either. I have had times of healing in my heart before, but nothing like this. I find myself confronted on all sides in my life where I have held back places in my heart and my life from God. I know, it doesn’t seem like I have at all right? I have though and I have been quite stubborn and prideful about it.

In this place in my life I am seeing where I have continually stood in a place of self-protection and even set myself up for complete rejection from people. I don’t know how to communicate my heart, feelings, and thoughts in a way that is loving, respectful, kind, meek, and honoring to myself AND OTHERS. I speak my mind so often and immediate that it cuts down those around me and then I can’t handle when others do the same to me. This is an honest perspective of the state of living I have operated in for a long time. I have lived in fear of being rejected and hurt for far too long and it’s now become my worst enemy.

Thankfully, God doesn’t leave us where we are at… “He is faithful to complete the work he has started in us”, as Paul told the Thessalonians. We are continually becoming more and more like him, from “Glory to Glory”.  While this transition hasn’t been easy, I am thankful for correction and growth, even if it isn’t brought up to me in the most beneficial way, it doesn’t matter. One thing I have learned amongst all of this, and there are several other things but I think this would be most beneficial for others, is that it doesn’t matter HOW someone confronts you, whether it’s good or bad, regardless of how the person does it, THAT doesn’t matter. Look HONESTLY at what they are saying and ask God if there are any valid points. If there are, take them to God and ask him to remove, heal, and change them. After that, if you think it’s worth the time talking to whoever brought these things up about a better approach, then you now have the speck/log removed from your eye to help… In other words the thing that was causing them to be offended is now removed and you can now help them without causing offense, IF they are open to it.

I can say that while I have been through a lot in my life, God has always been faithful, even through this. As one of the Pastors at Bethel , Paul Manwaring, says” He wastes nothing and gets us ready”. He has never intended for a single thing that hurt and broke my heart to happen HOWEVER, He won’t waste it and He’ll prepare me for my destiny. That is what I feel he is doing to me right now. THAT brings me joy, peace, hope, and love. I don’t want to live a life of mediocrity… I wasn’t born for that and neither are YOU. I choose to face the hard places in my heart and yield them to the Lord and His ways. I am thankful that it’s just a season of healing, freedom, and then learning to stay in that place. I know when I go back to Africa that I will be able to lead several more into the freedom that I have walked through with God. I am thankful that I can also do that here in America as well… Many Americans, including myself, let pain, hurt, and rejection cause us to live so individualistically that we don’t even catch it… It sneaks up on us. We isolate ourselves and say it’s because we need alone time. While that’s true sometimes, we are one of the few cultures that does that on a pretty regular basis. My experience has shown me that while we have great understanding of how the brain works through psychology, medicine, science, etc… we often don’t understand our own hearts.  God knows our hearts… It’s through knowing him more and yielding our heart to him that we gain understanding of it. It’s through having him teach us how to protect our heart that we can truly speak from our heart… I am not saying that needing alone time isn’t a good thing and that those who need more are incorrect, I am just saying that sometimes we need to ask our heart what is going on and what it is truly needing before we go off to be alone… We need to understand our hearts and the decisions we make from it. “The heart is deceptive in all its’ ways and who can understand it?” Proverbs says, however I would like to suggest that the Lord completely knows and understands our heart. He can teach us how to if we trust, listen, and obey him. That’s why he would rather have obedience than sacrifice. Sacrifice you can rationally and logically give, while obedience comes from the heart… Obedience is the sacrifice that comes from our heart rather than our mind.

Again, I am not beating myself up or anything… this is just an update about the changes I have been experiencing and going through and my own thoughts on it… Learning to communicate your heart is a difficult thing… It takes trusting the Lord is your protector to do so. Jesus…. Father God… Holy Spirit: HELP US! You’re the only one that can help us have real covenant relationships here on earth as they are in heaven! AMEN!

More to come about my future plans to go back to the lovely continent of Africa!