Lessons from 2014

I have learned many valuable lessons in 2014, but i'll narrow it down to the three biggest ones:

1. Faith is not a feeling. We've all heard it, and I already "knew" it, but this year I learned for myself that sometimes (or, many times) I simply don't feel like worshipping the Lord. I don't feel close to God. I can't seem to hear his voice. Ok, I am an extremely sensitive person. When I can't "feel" something, I automatically think something is wrong. God is teaching me that He does not necessarily work that way. Of course, if my mind is muddled with every distraction under the sun, my heart cannot connect with His and of course I can't hear from Him very clearly. My heart was made to love God, made to worship Him. Just like in any human relationship, it requires effort. It means that I have to be intentional with my relationship with the Lord. Sometimes I literally have to make myself pray out the names of God and sing His praises until my mind and heart catch up and fall back in line.

2. I need to learn to admit I need help sometimes, ask for it, and be willing to accept it. I have been so driven by what others think of me, and most of all my parenting. I tense up when my kids don't always behave the ways I want them to when we are in public. Yes, I am that mom who has to constantly excuse herself to chase after a certain child, who just wants to explore, but seems to think my directions of "stay on the playground" are just just too much to ask. I often times leave feeling embarrassed, frustrated, and beating myself up for not being a good enough mom. I get overwhelmed, I lack a sense of direction sometimes, I desperately need the support of others to help me parent well.

3. Family is not just the one we were born into. I am extremely fortunate to have the love and support of my AMAZING parents and cousin and siblings and grandparents and aunts and uncles. Seriously, I hit the family lottery. However, this year the body of Christ has been a great source of life to me. The Lord has brought some beautiful friendships into my life, and has grown some even more this year! You know that expression "blood this thicker than water"? I have my own version: there is nothing thicker than blood. Family blood, and the family I have under the Blood of Christ. These people I can call sisters, and they have walked with me and prayed for me like no one else ever has. I am forever thankful.

In 2014, God did...well, God-sized miracles in my life. He blessed me with materials such as finances and a car! (Another story, another day.) He also carried me through some really tough times. This year I began the journey to healing and forgiveness. I felt the pain of the past five years, the emotions I had kept bottled up on a dusty shelf somewhere deep in my heart. It has been awful and wonderful at the same time.

I faced, and am facing, fear and have had some intense battles with anxiety. This year, the Lord has brought me to deeper levels of trust and teaching me that He is the one on whom I can depend!
As He takes me apart, piece by piece, He is simultaneously drawing me, inch by inch, closer to Him.

The journey is far from over, and I am ready for the amazing things the Lord has already in store for 2015! Happy New Year!

Forgiveness is a choice

Last September, I prayed two specific prayers. 1. A prayer of forgiveness toward my ex husband 2. That God would make me new. Both prayers carry so much more weight than I knew because if I knew then what I know today, I don't know if I would be brave enough to say such prayers. The thing is though, they kind of go hand-in-hand...

So, when I was led in this forgiveness prayer, I honestly thought once it was over, it was over. I cried it out and felt a little bit lighter inside. That feeling faded once I began having anxiety attacks and was becoming consumed by fear and anxiety. Fear of what, I don't really know. Its just like I felt so many things and had no way to process it all and could not just sit down and sort it all out.

Last month I went on an unexpected retreat to be intentional about going deeper in the Lord. The anxiety attacks were becoming stronger and more numerous and I knew I had to get to the root of it somehow. During the retreat I was in a time of worship and it was a little noisy in the room because everyone else was praying and singing out loud. In the midst of it all, God spoke to me in the most calm and clear way: "forgive him."

I know it has to be real, it has to be deep and tangible and I know that I need God to help me through it all. So I just told God that I trusted that he would show me. Then two days ago I read a blog post and the author said this of forgiveness:


"Through my healing process, I learned to choose forgiveness over bitterness, cynicism and hatred. I forgave. It’s been a hard, hard battle in my heart, but now that I’ve made the choice, I feel so much lighter.

Forgiveness helps you release the stifling control of the past; it drops away from you like a stifling cloak so you can move and breath and dance once more. Forgiveness doesn’t make you forget the past, but it changes the way you relate to the past. It’s a process, and it will probably never stop. Now that I know it’s truly important, I’m willing to choose it again and again, over and over, for the rest of my life."

I don't want to wait anymore.


Tonight, I am choosing to forgive you.
I forgive you for making me believe you loved me.
I forgive you for treating my virginity as a conquest.
I forgive you for all of the lies.
I forgive you for the porn.
I forgive you for the other women.
I forgive you for the ways you used me.
I forgive you for the times you threatened me and made me afraid.
I forgive you for rejecting our daughter before we were even home from the hospital.
I forgive you for walking away from our marriage.
I forgive you for doing things to make life that much harder on us.
I forgive you for telling the world our son is not really yours.
I forgive you for the pathetic reasons I have to give to my kids for your abandonment.
I forgive you for the continuation of the rejection by getting married again.
I forgive you that I now have to explain to my kids that you now have another child.
I forgive you for the nights I feel the pain so intensely.
I forgive you for the times I feel like I am falling so short as a parent and I have no one to turn to.
I forgive you for the birthdays, holidays, and special events you have missed and will miss in the future.
I forgive you, and I also thank you, for your selfishness in signing over your rights to be a dad to my kids. It has honestly been one of the greatest blessings in all of this.

I forgive you. Not because you deserve it, but because I long for my heart to be free. I want to walk in the freedom that Jesus died for me to have. He forgave me, so I am forgiving you. I will walk it out every single day until it is finished.

God's will vs. my will

I've been living differently these days. I used to exhaust myself with just thinking up all of the possibilities of what God's will for my life could possibly be. He (thankfully) has given me a "ah-ha!" moment, but I think of it as more of a "duh, Erin!" moment. I  mean, i'm a single mom. Although I know that is not my life's only purpose, but that's what it is right now! It was so hard to me to just settle into that.

Ever since my mind sort of switched gears and the cry of my heart became "Lord, what is your will?" rather than "Lord, what is your will for MY life?" I feel so much quieter inside. When I was so unsettled and focused (more like, obsessed) on my life and my future, by the week's end I was still without a resolution and would get almost into a depression. (Yeah, probably not too healthy.) Now, I pray for the Lord's will. Period. I want to be in line with Him and just take each day as it comes. Everyday is new, and as creative as our Creator-God is...he keeps showing me there really isn't a blueprint for life.

I have been enjoying my kids more, and feel like a better mom because I just AM. Its so freeing to just be. I'm still trusting the Lord with my future. He has the most beautiful story written for me, illustrated with beauty only He, the creator of heaven and earth, can make. I'm so thankful for this continuous journey of peace and freedom that is truly only found in Jesus Christ! Praises.

Lord, have mercy.

So many things in my life have not gone according to plan. My plan, that is. I never imagined my life the way it has turned out. I never, ever thought I would be divorced. In fact, my ex husband and I would proudly state how the word was "not even allowed in our vocabulary". Yet, when those explosive fights began that was the first word on his lips and the first one on my mind. I never wanted my marriage to fail, I never "planned" on that happening. My daily prayer was "Lord, change him or remove him." out of my desperation it was all I could hold onto because nothing made sense at the time.

Yes, God could have turned the heart of my ex and made him into a man of integrity. He is the God who restores and he could have very well restored my marriage, or at least restored his heart to his own children. (You know how that story ended and the new one began.) I have wrestled with this in prayer trying to understand why. I have come to the conclusion that God has shown me mercy. Mercy in that I no longer had to remain in a dangerous situation and mercy because my children will never be traumatized by the unhealthy and destructive patterns their father lives in and will never feel the inevitable rejection. God knew it all before I did, and that's why I always say He has rescued us.

I have said before how I have pushed and stretched so far outside of my comfort zone that I can't even remember what it feels like to be comfortable. I have never fought so hard, doubted so much, had my faith built up so much, or pressed into the Lord as much as I have in the past four years or so. Especially in the last year, 2013. There have been so many times when I think I have something figured out, according to my plans, and the door to that plan closes with no explanation. So many times I have wept trears of disappointment and cried out "Lord, why?!" and He seems so quiet. In the stillness (when I actually am, still.) He says "just wait, child." I believe when God says "no" or "wait", it is Him again showing His mercy. He protects us from things that may not be that good for us, or simply from the things that aren't His best or His plan for our lives.

The season I am in is...interesting. Now, I am walking in a place where I know something has to change and the Lord is preparing me for it. The only word I can really grasp right now is "forward". He is calling me higher and deeper than I have been before. Outside of where I feel safe, and trusting that even when I have no earthly idea how things are going to happen that HE does. I have barely worked in the past two weeks, job opportunities never match up to what I need, even relational issues have been popping up here and there. Honestly, I am thankful for the ways things don't play out the way I envisioned them. I know God has not forgotten about me, and He is well-aware of my dreams, desires, and passions. He knows the way my heart can just ache sometimes.

God is pushing me out of my old comforts and old ways of living. I have been running more lately, mainly to just be alone and to be quiet for an hour or so. One very cold day (as cold as Florida can get, I suppose) I went for a run and happened to stop near this tree to stretch.

In that quietness, a song started on my playlist that spoke so clearly to my busy mind.

I could hold onto to who I am and never let You change me from the inside

I could be safe here in Your arms and never leave home, never let these walls down

 

You have called me higher, You have called me deeper

and i'll go where You will lead me Lord

 

 

This ministered to me in a way I never knew possible. Not because it answered my questions or lessened them, but because for the first time I felt pure joy in knowing that the life I lead is a result of God's mercy! He knows me so well and it blows me away every time. It is  more fulfilling than any of my own plans I had for my life. I may not know where this is all leading to, but I know who is leading me and He is faithful!

 

I will be Yours, I will be Yours for all my life

so let Your mercy light the path before me.