The dream – and awakening 50 years later
For 50 years I didn’t know: My dream at age 3 profoundly explained and influenced the trauma in my life. Then, I began awakening to the key I’d held all along.
For 50 years I didn’t know: My dream at age 3 profoundly explained and influenced the trauma in my life. Then, I began awakening to the key I’d held all along.
I was a “good Christian girl” until well into middle age. Then, God led me where I did not want to go, to show me what I desperately needed to see.
Once, in Malachi, God may have said that he hates divorce. Repeatedly, in Jeremiah, God reveals how much he hates divorcing. Repeatedly, he laments the nonstop betrayals that did, and could, bring him to do it.
You pursue truth differently when you're desperate, when your life hinges on what you find – and your spirit is released to resonate with the Spirit of God.
In the middle of that dark-valley time, I often found myself alone with God, crying aloud and writing passionately in my journal. During that time too, I came to identify with David, the shepherd-poet-warrior-king, in ways I had not before. For David was also ostracized by people he trusted. And he cried out in distress - and in faith.
Real rest is so different from what I had thought. It’s so much more expansive, and desirable, and enjoyable. And it’s so very vital. Thing is, I desperately needed real rest long before I knew I needed it. I had no clue how rest-deprived I was.
I praise you, Lord my Shepherd. You have overcome for me all the shame that ever has or ever will attach to me. You are teaching me to overcome it too. By your grace, I drink deeply of your favor, and it restores my rest.
I’ve updated Return to Your Rest, and included a chapter about enemies of rest I have faced. May God give us courage to rise up in the face of all that fights against it - and to return to rest.
Shame that’s exposed hurts like hell. But only – only – when brought out into the light can shame be dealt with and sent away.
Mini-post. Quote about the effects of carried shame and carried feelings, from the book, I Don't Want to Talk About It.