My Monster

Inside there lives a monster
It wreaks havoc on my soul
to utterly destroy me,
is it's final goal

The taste of it is pleasing,
as I take it in
Satisfaction for a moment,
I need it once again

Inside, I'm slowly dying
I cant resist the pull
It leaves me dark and empty
it never leaves me full

When I try to fight it,
the stronger it becomes
The need once again arises
and to it I succumb

I've prayed for God to take it
and still it takes a hold
His grace is sufficient
is what I'm often told

But I cannot resist it
on my own I often fall
So again on my Jesus
I make a heartfelt call

Will I ever rise above this
Or am I doomed to be
forever in its clutches
It's slowly drowning me

I've even tried to hide it
but it grows larger still
It swallows me in darkness
this cannot be your will

Why can't you take this from me
I beg you, set me free
I fear it holds me back
from all I'm meant to be

How can you look upon me
and love me all the same
when inside me grows a monster
that I just cannot tame

Waiting.

Waiting

The story of my life. 

Waiting for the pain to stop. Waiting for mr. Right. Waiting on God to move in every area. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting.

I don't have a problem with the waiting. I have a problem with the pain that there seems to be no cure for. I have a problem with the depression that won't leave. I have a problem with the loneliness and the ache that God lets linger no matter how many times I beg for Him to take it.

I'm tired.

I'm tired of Christians giving me their so-called wisdom on how to ease it all. "Well, if you'd just to this," or "you need to fix that." "Pray like this." "You're not doing that." To be more specific, it's phrases like "spend more time with God," "tithe more," "serve more." "Get rid of that person," and one of my personal favorites "just give it to God and  stop worrying about it."

See, here's the thing...I do give my stuff to God. Anything that hurts I am MORE than willing to hand it over. I HATE pain. Emotional pain is the worst for me. Physical pain has an end, emotional pain seems endless. 

First of all, I spend time with God. For me that's a daily necessity. It's NOT an option. Second, I have prayed more times than I can ever possibly count for God to take the pain. I pray 1 Peter 5:7 (Cast all your cares upon Him because He cares for you), and the response I get is 2 Corinthians 1:9 (My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness), Psalm 46:10 (be still and know that I am God) and one of my personal favorites, Proverbs 3:5-6 (trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not into your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will direct your paths). 

I am not good at any of these things. First, I hate being weak. I have survived some crazy things in my life because I have a strong personality. Weakness, in my mind, is not an option. Second, I am not good at being still. I don't know why, but I hate being still. And third, let's be perfectly honest here, I'm not good at trusting either. Don't get me wrong, there are certain areas that I FULLY trust God in. But there are one or two that I would prefer to just lay it down and walk...or rather run...away. 

The problem is that all of these things don't come easy to me. They should...but they don't. If I was to be completely open with my past, (and you didn't run the other way), you'd probably understand my need to run and His pressing to be still. You'd understand why I hide behind a wall of passivity and why I'd rather not be in the whole "dating scene". 

So what am I supposed to do? I can't run backwards but I feel like I can't go forward either. I feel like I'm stuck. This of course takes me to the Israelites. The Red Sea (the obstacle) is on one side and the Egyptians (their past) is on the other. They're trapped. They've watched God perform many miracles and yet they're crying out for death and even the chance to go back. You'd think they'd be happy. They're free. They're on their way to their promised land. A harsh reality hits me..I'm just.like.them. I'm looking at the situation as if God has never come through for me before. I've been set free and spared from so much yet I act as if that was somehow better than what God has. 

So the real answer is that I have to be like Joshua, Caleb, and David. I have to face my giant and know that my promised land is not something that is taken easily. It's filled with Giants. Giants of my past. There's no running this time. As much as it hurts, I must be still and know that He is God. But it's easier said than done. That's where 2 Corinthians steps in. I'm weak. I don't want to stand. I want to run. But He is strong. And I have to trust. 

Waiting. It's not a passive thing. Sometimes it's facing your Giants and watching Him overcome. It's taking up your armor and standing your ground as God fights for you. It hurts and it sucks but if experience has taught me anything, He's faithful. He will come through but the thing is: I have to be still and wait.

Above and Beyond

I recently entered into a Christian writing contest in which I was supposed to write about something amazing that God has done in my life. I thought to myself "this will be easy". God has done so much for me that I could never run out of things to write about. Then I found out that it had to be between 700-750 words...hmmmm...not so easy.
My entire life has been an outright showmanship of who He is. Anyone who knows my past knows that I am not the person that I should be based on statistics alone. I can look back at anytime in my life and see an outpouring of His amazing grace.
Just within the last two months, God has done above and beyond anything that I could have ever asked for or imagined and I knew that I couldn't condense that down to 750 words but I call myself a writer, so I had to try.
It didn't take me long to narrow it down to the miracle that I wanted to write about. God has given me a great job and a home but the greatest thing He has given to me, or back to me, is my daddy.
For those who don't know, let me give you a little background:
When I was about 18 months old, my mother left our dad and ushered us straight into the hands of an abuser. By the age of 5, I knew and had experienced every type of abuse (physical, emotional, sexual, mental, emotional, and spiritual) and yet, at that same time, I came face to face with my need for a Savior. We were being raised in church and I don't remember a time when I didn't know OF Jesus. I do remember the moment when I realized my need to know Him personally. From that moment on, my faith in Him was strong and He became my only security in a very unstable world. I felt unloved by my parents, unnoticed by the world, and unworthy of anything better than the life I was given. I grew up believing that my father didn't love me and that he was a mean and angry man. Those thoughts, I have found, will tear a little girl to pieces and lead her to try and find love and acceptance anywhere she can and most times, it is found in the worst places and she will end up with some of the worst people.
I went from abusive relationship to abusive relationship. I struggled to break free from the bondage that I felt in my soul, only to be dragged down again and again. After divorcing yet another abusive man, I felt led to go to Los Angeles, CA for music school and found myself in a church internship program. During the program, my leader insisted that I try out Celebrate Recovery..and when I say insist...I mean she made it a part of my mandatory hours. She knew I needed it and God knew that I would follow authority. For the first 6 months or so, I fought God every step of the way; insisting that I didn't need recovery; that I had gotten over the pains of my past. One night, however, I realized that I had just been running from it and yet holding onto it at the same time. I repented and surrendered it that night and thus began some of the most painful years of my life (healing hurts y'all!!). I made it through and three years later, I found myself joyful and content despite the fact that life actually kind of sucked. I graduated from school and couldn't find a job in Los Angeles. My children, my mother and I were all living in a studio apt...actually...we were surviving. I put my resume out to so many places and no one would hire me.
On the Monday after the July 4th weekend, my brother mentioned that he felt that I should move back to Texas, not really something I wanted to do. I'll be honest, Texas may be home, but its also the place where I associate a lot of pain. It was where a lot of abuse took place. It was the place where I felt a lot of rejection. It was the place where my father lives.
So I didn't want to go back but I felt a peace in my spirit so I made an ultimatum with God: "If that's where You want me, I need a job and a home."
Did I tell you that I had been searching for 2 years for a job in LA? Well let me tell you what God did. Thursday, (yes, three days after I spoke to my brother and gave God the ultimatum), I received a call for a job interview in Texas. I hopped on a Greyhound the very next day and had the job by Tuesday of the next week. A month later, I signed the paperwork for a place for me and my kids. I gave God an ultimatum and He answered.
All of this is amazing, right?! But it's not the best part. The BEST part is that God gave me my daddy back. I said before that I thought he hated me; that he wanted nothing to do with me; that he was an angry and mean man...but when I met him, I found out those things just weren't true. I found out that my daddy is just like me. His humor, his love for Jesus, the way he thinks, the way he loves...I got it all from him.
Just in the past two months, I have found that how I viewed my dad was a lot like how many people view God from afar. They think He's mad at them; that He doesn't love them; that He's mean and angry. But when they meet Him, they find out that those things are the furthest from the truth.
I have seen many sides of God: I have seen Him as Creator as I watch the sunrise in the early morning. I have seen Him as Healer as I let Him heal the deep wounds in my heart. I have seen Him as Comforter as I walked through the abuse. I have seen Him as Savior as I became aware of my sin. I have seen Him as Friend when He was the only friend I had. I have seen Him as Redeemer as He redeemed my life from hell, depression, suicide, poverty, war, and abuse. But in the past two months I have gotten to see Him as Abba as He gave to me and provided in overflow. I have seen Him as restorer as He restored my relationship with my Dad. He has done Above and Beyond anything I could have ever imagined or asked for.

My Weakness

2 Corinthians 12:7-10 used to annoy me. Especially verses 9-10: "and He said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you for My strength is made perfect in weakness." Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ's sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong."

Seriously?!? Who wants to boast in their infirmities? Personally, I HATE pain. I HATE warfare. Both make me feel weak and not in control: two things I am not a fan of. But then again, who is?

Today as I read this passage, a deeper understanding touched my soul. This week I have been plagued with an unsettling in my spirit. It shakes me to the core of my faith and belief and knowledge of who God is. I have prayed, cried, pleaded, fasted and done everything I know to do to combat it. Each time I was filled with peace but the turmoil remained. As I was listening to a teaching this morning, I had a revelation about the pain: if what I am walking into was easy, how would God get the glory? In my weakness and pain I am forced to rely on God's strength and trust Him fully. It's awesome to teach people what the Bible says about God, but what speaks the most is when I can speak of who He is from His word and then back it up with experience. So even though He is working something out in me, it's not all about me.

Mere moments after this revelation I turned to 2 Corinthians 1:4: "who (speaking of God) comforts us in all our tribulations, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God." As I meditated on this, the verse in chapter 12 rang in my head again, "and He said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my strength is made perfect in weakness." I suddenly understood why Paul would "boast" in his sufferings. God was keeping Paul humble because God works through humility. If Paul was able to endure the afflictions on his own, his flesh may have tried to take the credit. This is pride. In 1 Peter 5:5 it says: "God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble." God HATES pride. I'm talkingabout the pride that says, "Look at what I did all byMYSELF!"

So at this point we need to ask ourselves: if we were able to just walk into the promises of God with no issues would we be tempted to think "Well!! Look at MY faith! It's so strong!"? The truthful answer is: Quite possibly. It’s in these moments when we must realize, that our faith can be quite weak as we tend to lean on our own understanding and many times on the things that we can see. At times when the enemy comes at us, we have to fight the urge not to run the other way and give up. It’s in these moments that we find that it is indeed through His strength that we can do anything. So, we can boast in our weaknesses because it's through our weakness that God's strength shines through. The struggle is real but so is our God. Our pain is great but our God is greater. Our addictions may have us in chains but we know The Name that breaks them. We can rest because Jesus paid it all.