The God who Is
It seems God is gradually surfacing the issues that have eluded me these past two decades. Since God's spoken into my life 5 years ago, He's been faithfully teaching me who He is--in the hopelessness of my human condition, His assurance, my rebellious heart that rebels even against myself, His forgiveness, my misplaced love for life's pleasures and subsequent disappointment, His meeting my every true need.
But there was always a semi-consciousness that one was still on the way to wholeness. It was the knowledge that one was not quite there yet, from the brokenness of the past, so that one lived as though something were still missing from part of himself. It were as though there was still something in my life that was giving Satan a foothold, that Satan leveraged on to drag me into depression/ hopelessness/ terror. I was terribly frustrated at never being able to put my finger on what this foothold was, all my life, though I've obediently dealt with everything God brought up.
Struggling with this one evening, I met Evan online, and he decided to pray and discern with me. I shared the following:
"I know it isn't good, but its almost as though I have a compulsion to return to dark flashbacks, oppressive attacks, nightmares, as though going back would help me salvage more of what's left of me and help me heal. Much as I will my concentration and thoughts away from those things, they return. I start shaking when I pray, but I know this is something I really need God to deal with, cos I refuse to be any less than what God intended for me to be. As to the root of all this, you gotta concede, while its hard to imagine God not being there while you're being dehumanised, its even harder to accept He's there, because you can't believe He wouldn't do anything. I don't know how i'm supposed to see it--with both God and me in the picture, and these evildoers."
As we prayed, God showed us Memory still held its power over me. I realised although deep in my heart I had forgiven my uncle, my parents, I still hurt, as though it were only yesterday. I also carried a guilt as though it were my fault. This had been so long suppressed that had God not pointed it out to me, I wouldn't have realised it or remembered. I'd thought forgiving them was the last act in bringing closure to healing, but God said there was more -- I needed to put Christ between me and the memory of abuse or violence, and claim the wholeness that He'd restore to me, because I was His.
I asked if this meant God would erase all memory. The answer was no. One would still remember what happened, but the spiritual and emotional effects would be removed. Satan would lose his foothold here.
The moment I prayed and accepted His deliverance, I felt as though a great sense of oppression had lifted off me. Not that it didn't want to weigh down, it simply had nowhere to go as far as my heart was concerned. In the place where parts of the heart had been chewed missing, I felt as though a new substance had joined to make it complete, and with it, I received His peace. I was full of joy, at being finally free! And I know I'll never be the same again =). I lost my fear of ever dwelling on dark thoughts again -- there is no longer a reason for me to return to them!
But that's also just the beginning of the final phase of healing God is taking me through. Over the past two weeks, since Evan's ministry, God's surfaced other memories He wanted to deal with. You wouldn't believe it, but a few of those had to do with a pair of birds I kept and loved as my only friends while in primary school, which my mother killed. I sang to them when I was all alone, after a beating, and they seemed to like my company. When I did remember them, I couldn't believe my amount of anguish and regret, missing them 17 years on.
The week after that, God showed me an anger I never realised was there. I shared with a friend:
"Need some prayer. Discernment would also really help. If not covering is just fine. I've been praying over those age-old issues, and God's allowed me to become conscious of an overwhelming anger.
Its almost murderous in intent, so much so that if i don't act on killing somebody, the next best alternative is to act on killing me. I recognise this as the spirit that's been behind all the provocations to suicide.
When I contend with the anger to bring it before God, I am in great fear of being swept away by it and losing all self-control. The anger is foreign to my nature, it does not seem to be of me. I feel like I am taking on somebody else's nature when overwhelmed.
This is where I need discernment. I'm trying to understand the change in personalities. I can think of two possible reasons, but I can be sure of neither.
The first possibility is that the anger comes from me, and is a result of psychological disassociation because I cannot picture God in the events of the past. The second is demon posession, but I've been told countless times this isn't possible in a Christian. I must confess that I struggle often with suppressing this other dark, murderous, angry "personality". I win either through prayer or indifference to spiritual matters. but the point is, it always keeps coming back, and I'm not sure that's the conclusion God would be satisfied with."
And so I've been struggling, for this anger is hate-filled, and at its core hates God vehemently. It screams, lunges, and kicks out at him. It has the nightmarish flavour of an image that came to mind when I prayed with simone once. As she said “to lift up our eyes to the cross” all I saw on the cross was a horrible figure Man’s body, but with a long dragonish neck and a head which leered and gloated over destruction and waste, lunging out, stretching as far as it could reach down, screaming an endless stream of vulgarities at God. It is entirely distracting. While coming to terms that this may be me however, (although I really don't think it's me at work) , one cannot worship God. If it were my anger, then I would have done something I can't bear to do to God. It would be easy to shelve it just to dwell half-heartedly on Him, or supress it and forget it so I could worship in innocence if I could indeed forget, but then since I know it exists now, I cannot be any less honest before God.
God wants me, all of me free, so that I should know no fear of Him, nor imagine his rejection any longer.
So the roller-coaster ride has been somewhat frustrating and tiring. There are times I no longer know what to hold on to, or how to hold on.
But God IS, in spite of everything I am, or what I can do, or give.
I was reading Genesis 15.
Standing under a star-filled sky, alone on a hill, is Abraham. The gently undulating lands spread out before him, and dusk shrouds them in a prussian-grey gloom.
By him was his God and friend, before him, around him, and above him. And God broke the silence of the still night. And, behold, God said, "Look now toward heaven, and count the stars, if you can number them -- So shall your descendents be."
Abraham believed in the Lord, and God counted it to him for righteousness.
God said "I am the LORD that brought you out of Ur of the Chaldees, to give you this land to inherit it.", and then taught Abraham to make a covenant with Him. Abraham was to take a heifer, a goat, and a ram, and 2 birds. He was to build altars, then take the ram, goat and heifer and divide their carcases into two, so that according to middle eastern culture, both parties making the covenant would pass through the divided carcases together. It signified this--that if ever one party should go back on his word, they would both be split apart, like these animals.
Abraham did as he was told. All day long he toiled to find stones and build the altar. Then he finally laid the carcases on the altar, spaced far apart. But with the bodies, vultures began to soar overhead. Soon they swooped down, pecking at the sacrifices. From noon till night, Abraham spent his day running from end to end of the clearing, chasing vultures away.
Very soon, Abraham grew tired. A deep sleep came upon him, and darkness fell.
God came in the darkness, and watched over Abraham as a father watched his son. Covering Abraham, God said to the sleeping Abraham, "Your offspring shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs (Egypt), and shall serve them. They shall afflict your offspiring for four hundred years. Afterwards, I shall judge that nation, and your offspring will come out with great substance." God told Abraham how He would always remain, to preside and watch over Abraham's children.
And there, as man slept in the darkness, God took it upon himself to light the furnaces, and pass between the altars alone. Where man failed to rise to meet God, for nothing less than a blessing, God saw to it that He was more than enough for man's weaknesses. In His compassion, God would hold up the entire bargain, if man failed to hold his own side of it.
And if God IS, in spite of everything I am, or what I can do, or give, then I have no fear left. This is the God I know. The God to whom I belong, simply because of who He IS. I can trust Him to lead me on, to carry me, if need be, no matter how dark the night I may pass through, on account of my humaness. As long as I am willing, there is no blindness or rebelliousness He cannot deal with. And God, I'm willing.
At the foot of the cross, I've learnt that brokenness is not a matter of God breaking me through a struggle with my own human nature. its that and more. Brokeness is watching God break His son for me
| e.s.t.h.e.r in the arms of Jesus @
7/23/2007 09:03:00 pm |
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