Even in suffering, even in exile, may you find growing within you: A life energetic and blazing with holiness, conceived by God himself. Life healed and whole. Laughter and singing. Genuine faith proved genuine. Living hope. One-anothering love. A future that starts now.
Learning to dance with God means being vulnerable, flexible, brave, as he frees us from the paralysis of the religious and teaches us to move in sync with him.
"I let go of all I have just to have all of You." - A song that has encouraged me in the night, "Worth It All," Meredith Andrews
Psalm 46:10 says, "Be still, and know that I am God." But the Hebrew verb translated "be still" actually means: "Decisively let go, or abruptly cease, something strenuous you are doing." It urges me to let go of the tug-of-war rope called enmeshment, that robs me of identity and intimacy.
It's the best-loved verse in Jeremiah, and God says it to exiles. He announces to people who feel they have no future at all: "I know what I have planned for you. I have plans to prosper you, not to harm you. I have plans to give you a future filled with hope."
If you have suffered at the hands of the self-absorbed, the biblical book of Esther was written for you. Far from the fairy tale we've imagined, Esther's story shows us how to overcome the chaos and destruction wreaked by narcissists who care only for themselves.
More than a century ago, Andrew Murray explored the difference - and the conflict - between our spirit and our soul. He showed from Scripture the Spirit-to-spirit dynamic God has designed.
The work of exile – the work God wants to do through it – is to free you from bondage that masquerades as relationship, to draw you to himself, to show you what is and is not love. Perhaps the hardest thing you can do in exile – and by far the most freeing – is to stay there until it has done its work.
A beautiful song and a powerful word that have encouraged me in the night. - "Not by Might (By My Spirit)," Eden's Bridge
I believe in breaking the silence of secrecy that abusers impose. I also believe that, for a survivor, silence is sometimes the most spiritual choice.