How to Receive Comfort - Part 2

The barriers we put up to "protect" our heart are there for reasons that make sense at the beginning.  Over time the need for the barriers usually diminishes, but by then we have learned patterns of behavior that are hard to overcome without help.   

I unconsciously learned at a very young age that being my own source of comfort was the only consistent way to get my needs met.  My dad was never a source of comfort, and my mom was an unreliable source of comfort.  I stopped depending on them to meet my needs and learned instead "to be strong for others” (a euphemism for bypassing grief). 

I was unaware that this is what I was doing and it took me decades to figure it out. I started hoarding stuff and sneaking food at a very young age to cope with my emotions.

Recently I walked into my Freedom Ministry Training class at church and opened up my workbook as directed by the instructor.  My eyes were immediately drawn to this image: 

Decades of unawareness fell like scales from my eyes and suddenly so many things made sense.  The training manual reads, “…our family of origin plays a significant role in shaping how we relate to God, the Father; God, the Son, and God, the Holy Spirit.”  It went on to say, “Experiences with our mother can produce limitations in the way we relate to the Holy Spirit.”  

Being left in the care of others at age 7, and then being left in the care of strangers in Mexico at age 9, and ultimately running away from home at age 13 were the life-shaping experiences that I had with my mother.  

I wasn’t sure how to process all this, so on my next visit with my counselor I “outed” myself and showed her the textbook, and told her I was at a loss.  We talked about how my relationship with my mother had stopped being about receiving comfort from her at a very early age. She gave me the following homework assignment that day: 

Find some time when the house is quiet.

Get comfortable.

Close your eyes and ask God what it would be like to receive comfort from the Holy Spirit.

Wait quietly for the answer. 

It felt awkward to me to think about doing this and I was very resistant to the idea.  My burning desire for wholeness and healing is what motivated me to do what she said. 

The next day I found myself in a quiet house.  I remembered my assignment and went and lay down on my bed and I could hear my counselors voice in my head telling me to “Get comfortable”.  (At this point I’m still feeling awkward and resistant to this whole exercise and I’m thinking, “Fine.  Whatever.  I’ll get comfortable”, and start arranging the pillows under my head.  “Okay.  I’m comfortable. Now what?”) 

The next voice I hear is no longer my counselors.  It’s the voice I have come to recognize as God’s when He is speaking to me in my spirit.  He said the same thing my counselor said to me, only the meaning behind the words went much deeper:  “Get comfort-able.” 

I knew immediately that He meant for me to let down the protective barrier I had around my heart and invite Him into the wounded place I had kept covered and protected all these years.  This idea caused me to begin to experience anxiety, so I had to back up a little and pray (out loud) a familiar prayer I had been praying since November that helped me overcome anxiety:

“Fear, you have no place here and no authority to stay, so I command you to go to the foot of the Cross, or wherever Jesus tells you.  Holy Spirit, come and fill up all the places in my heart that are wounded and need comfort.”

Only this time, the second half of my prayer was from a place deep in my heart that I had never prayed from before.  It was like my grown, adult self was standing next to that little seven year old girl inside me and asking for the comfort I needed from my mom on that day but couldn’t get.

Praying, and really meaning, the second part of that prayer was like the dam broke and the flood of tears that followed was overwhelming. As I lay there sobbing with my chest ripped wide open and my broken heart exposed, my mind began a conversation with God that went something like this:

“Okay, here I am, with my broken heart as exposed as it can be.  I need to know this is real.  I need to know how this “Holy-Spirit-comforting-me-thing” works because I don’t understand it and experiencing this much pain all over again feels overwhelming.”

Then God speaks again and says to me, “As a mother comforts her child, so I will comfort you.” 

I realize then that the voice I had been hearing all these years was the Holy Spirit’s voice, that the Holy Spirit had been with me, near me, present in my life, all along.

The Holy Spirit then begins to play some images in my mind of specific times when I have comforted my own children and how it was that just my presence, my words of comfort, and my arms wrapped around them, brought comfort to them.  I remembered when we were little when we were sick we got to sleep with mom, and how comforting it was just to be next to her.  I remembered when my son Jacob was just five months old and had surgery and I stayed in the hospital with him the entire time, never leaving him without the source of comfort he had learned to depend on.

I was able to make a huge leap of faith that day and experienced the very real, comforting presence of the Holy Spirit, who had been waiting patiently for me to work out all my “Father” issues so that he could step in, introduce himself, and teach me how to receive comfort from Him.  There's a reason why He is referred to in the Bible as "The Comforter”.

There are some of the steps I took in order to be able to receive comfort from the Holy Spirit:

1.  Acknowledge that you are "un-comfort-able"

2.  Acknowledge that you are in pain

3.  Acknowledge your need for comfort

4.  Stop being your own source of comfort

5.  Get (or Be) "comfort-able"

6.  Remove the barriers and expose the wounded places in your heart and experience the comforting presence of the Holy Spirit

Steps 1 through 3 took months of counseling during the previous year for me to figure out and acknowledge what the problem was.

Step 4 through 6 will be an ongoing process for me.

How to Receive Comfort - Part 1

There I was, eleven years old, out in the garage hiding.  I waited until I knew I would not be discovered and went to the freezer that was kept out there and found what I was looking for.  The little chocolate donuts, six to a wrapper.  I found a package, opened it right there and gobbled down the frozen treats as fast as I could, hoping nobody would find me.

In an overcrowded house with a dozen or more children and half as many adults, it was difficult to find privacy for sneaking the sweet treats, but I managed to do so often.  When my favorites were finally all gone, I would then look for my next favorites:  the white powder donuts. 

I learned about “closet-eating” as a way of self-comforting or self-soothing very early in life.  It was a very poor substitute for what I really needed during that phase of my growth and development, which was to receive the comfort I needed from my mom and dad.

I didn’t know my dad growing up, and had been separated from my mother on so many occasions as a young child that I learned to not depend on her to meet my very real needs.  Sometimes she would be gone for a few days or a few weeks.  One time I was left in the care of others for more than a year without any hope of her return or knowledge of her whereabouts. 

The first time I remember it really affecting me was at age seven, standing on the driveway of the house we were living in, bawling my eyes out and begging for her not to go. 

“Stop crying.  Crying doesn’t do any good.” That’s the message I got from my mom.

I cried anyway that day, but not being able to depend on her constant presence to comfort me caused me to start looking for other ways to find the comfort my heart desperately needed.

That pattern of being my own source for the comfort continued for decades.  It resulted in a weight problem and hoarding tendencies that began at an early age, and of course, continued for decades and eventually became an issue with obesity and a tendency to hold onto my “stuff” longer than what was healthy.  No other outcome was possible when food and stuff became the substitute for the real comfort I needed. 

My attempts at weight loss and decluttering were usually successful at the beginning, but every attempt ended with me eventually regaining the weight I had lost, plus more; or re-accumulating more stuff than I had gotten rid of in my last attempt at decluttering.  Lots more weight. Lots more stuff. 

The roller-coaster ride with my weight leveled out some after I attended a class called “Levels of Change” taught by Bob Hamp.  That was followed by a class called “The Problem Jesus Came to Solve” and several others, which are available to everyone, for free: 

Link:  http://gatewaypeople.com/ministries/freedom-kairos/media1

My problem, even after attending these classes, was that I did not recognize that I was my own source for comfort.  

After that first Freedom Ministry class in 2005, I made a commitment to myself that I would not try any more “diets” (I would consciously choose to make healthier choices at times, but I don't consider that to be a "diet") until I could solidly connect with my real identity and know “Who I am in Christ” with absolute assurance. I left class that day with a bookmark that read, "Who I am in Christ" and the following list of reminders with scripture references.

I am accepted.

I am secure. 

I am significant. 

This led me on a journey to the Heart of My Heavenly Father.  A journey that took almost a decade.  It makes sense considering I had no real relationship with my earthly father to help me navigate this journey.

To be continued....Part 2....here's a taste of what's to come:

Once safely connected to the Heart of my Father, I was easily able to make the next leap of faith and that was to a connection with the Holy Spirit, who had been waiting patiently for me to work out all my “Father” issues so that he could step in and help me learn to receive comfort, the real deal, from Him.  There's a reason why He is referred to as "The Comforter"!  

I was so used to “being strong” (a euphemism for bypassing grief) and carrying the very heavy load of grief inside of me, that I didn’t even realize that’s what I was doing.  It took me several more years to figure this out. I had no idea that when I signed up to take the Freedom Ministry Training class (so that I could help others) it would result in my healing and learning not just “how to” allow the Holy Spirit to comfort me (more knowledge), but to actually "do it" (experiential), "it" being allowing the Holy Spirit to comfort me...