The Purpose of Pain / Walking in Freedom

It seems ironic that God would use some physical pain I was experiencing to teach me about WALKING IN FREEDOM, but that is exactly what He did yesterday. Here is what I wrote in my personal journal:

"Body, soul, and spirt are designed to experience pain as a signal that gets me to act differently in response to the pain that I am experiencing.  Pain is a message that something isn't right and needs to change.  My usual response to pain is to compartmentalize it/deny it/avoid it and continue on...
By not allowing myself to experience the fullness of my pain I am depriving myself of experiencing the fullness of my joy as well.  Limiting myself in one area limits me in other areas as well.  I cannot selectively compartmentalize my emotions.

My 'normal' has been to brace myself against pain (mental, emotional, or physical) and bulldoze through it as though it weren't happening at all.  

Pretend.  Deny.  Internalize. Keep my chin up.  Be strong for others.  Minimize my needs.  Make myself useful, indispensable even.  Earn my keep.  Earn my place.  Whatever you do, Anna, just don't become a problem.  As you know, problems are eliminated.  Just continue on as though you are okay, because you don't want to be sent back to Denver."

Ouch.

***The light bulb goes on***

I realized through the journaling process that I learned to take on the weight of the responsibility for other people's problems that I was never intended to carry.  I was carrying burdens for others that I was never intended to bear.

I did this because I felt like I needed to earn my place with the people that I lived with.  If I wasn't useful then I wasn't needed.

I learned at a young age to push aside
pain
discomfort
tiredness
illness
distress
fear
sadness
and aloneness.

In other words, I learned to numb myself and PERFORM at all costs, to be USEFUL, even when it is to my own detriment.  

Yesterday, that lie was uprooted.  Here is what Holy Spirit said to me:

"Anna, I am going to work in the lives of others through you; not at your expense, BUT AT MINE."

In other words, I don't have to pay the price for the freedom of others.  I can't.  The price for their freedom has already been paid in full...on the Cross.

The freedom that I have experienced and walk in was very costly to Him.  The difference between me and others is that I have pressed in and availed myself of the freedom that Jesus died on the Cross to provide for me.  It's available to all who ask, seek, and knock for themselves.  Too often I have found myself asking, seeking, and knocking on behalf of others.  I was doing the work for them that they should have been doing for themselves.  I was working harder on their problem than they were, as Danny Silk says.  I was expending myself in a way that did not allow them to expend themselves in this process.  What I was doing was actually not very helpful, even though my intentions were entirely pure (though selfishly motivated...ouch!).

The price for freedom has been paid.  Jesus paid it all.  It is at His Expense that people are saved, healed, set free and made whole.  Freedom, just like Salvation, is a gift that must be received in order to be experienced.  Those who are not free are in a prison that is locked from the inside, and the key is inside the prison with them.  Nobody else can open the cell door for them.  They have to want to be free.  Sure, I could bust them out of prison from the outside, but that won't help them stay free.  They will only be imprisoned again because they didn't learn how to stay free.

Two of my favorite Bob Hamp quotes are:
"Freedom isn't the absence of something.  Freedom is the presence of someOne."
"Freedom is becoming the person that you were created and redeemed to be."

Paul said to the Corinthians, "Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom."

The key to uprooting the lies, unlocking the prison doors and to being set free is His Presence.

Coming Out of My Hiding Place

It happened again. 

"The Overwhelm"
"The Paralyses"
"Frozen in Fear"
"A Hot Mess" (This is another blog all by itself....coming soon)

Whatever you call it, it is a real thing. 

It's what happens to me when life comes at me fast, like a tornado that leaves a path of destruction in it's wake and leaves me hiding in the storm shelter long after the storm has passed.  Sometimes hiding looks like too much chocolate, or too much Netflix.  Or too much __________.  (Fill in the blank with your favorite hide out.) 

Important Things cannot get done while you're hiding out in a storm shelter. 

Yeah, that hiding business, it's a real thing all right.

It keeps me from doing the small things that the Bible calls "little". 
(It sounds something like this in my head:  "What good will picking up that one sock on the floor do when my whole house looks like a tornado came through it?"  Sound familiar?)

It keeps me from being found faithful in the Little Things and in the Important Things.
 
It keeps me from listening for that still, small Voice inside.  The Voice that is willing and able to guide me from that place of hiding, "protected" from a the swirling storm that has long since passed...

...to the place of freedom where I am released to act upon Holy Spirit guidance and direction.

It keeps me from looking for The Way out...The Way out of The Overwhelm, The Paralyses, and The Fear that binds me.

Quietly, patiently, and oh so lovingly Holy Spirit waits for an invitation.  For me the invitation goes something like this:

1.  I close my eyes and take a deep breath in. 
2.  I intentionally quiet the noise in my head.
3.  I let that deep breath out and relax my body. 
4.  I repeat 1-3....UNTIL.

Until the noise stops.
Until my belly lets go of the gripping anxiety.
Until I can hear The Voice speaking to the winds and the waves, "Be still."

The winds and the waves obey.  They obey because I obeyed. 

The word obey in the Greek means to attentively listen to the one giving the charge; acting under the authority of The One speaking.

I'm learning that there isn't anything that I have to do today that is more important than Attentively Listening for The Voice that calms the stormy seas in my heart and invites me to come out of my hiding place.

Hearing The Voice, and more importantly, receiving The Message that my heart desperately needs for this day is the key to walking in freedom.

Yesterday's message is not enough for this jumbled, mixed up heart of mine.  I need a fresh message, or fresh manna, for each day.   In Bob Hamp's book, Think Differently Lead Differently, he writes, "...if we try to hang on to yesterday's [manna]...we end up with a jar of rotten food." [In the margin of my copy of the book I wrote the words, "Oh. My".  I do that.  I write in all my best books. Then I had to put the book down and wrap my mind around that nugget of truth for a while.] 

I know I am hearing The Voice when I receive messages that sound something like this: 

"You are fully known, fully loved and fully accepted."
"It'll be okay, Anna.  I have you held securely in the palm of my hand." 
"I love you, Hot Mess and all."