Emerging

Two months.

Two months of waking up.

Two months of fulfilling old dreams.

Two months of emerging.

Two months of finding Him again.

Around a year ago, I had more than one person tell me that they sensed that I was entering into a season where I would break out of a cocoon. It was the most confusing thing when right after that, I felt like I was thrown into a season of complete darkness.

But sometimes… Darkness is actually not what it appears to be. Sometimes a season in which you cannot see is merely a season of hidden transformation. A year ago, without realizing it, I entered into that season- instead of breaking out, I was actually put into the cocoon.

But this year, I feel different. I’m coming alive again. I’m emerging from the hidden place. I’m waking up to who I am. I am breaking free from restrictions. And it’s painful to stretch my wings. It’s going to take some getting used to, feeling this amount of freedom.

Have you ever been afraid of freedom? Have you ever felt as though the rules, the endless boundaries, the advice of others, keep you safe in the little bubble of your shame because you are too afraid of the thought that you may not have to do anything (and actually there is nothing you can do) to earn the love of God? What would you do if you no longer felt the weight of shame, feeling like you had to somehow constantly be doing SOMETHING wrong?

This was me. Any time some sort of brokenness showed up in my life, deep down I knew the truth of His love. But I didn’t feel it, because shame and fear of doing something wrong was in the way. So to cope with my shame, I would go to my friends and the leaders around me to either tell me I wasn’t doing anything wrong, or to tell me how I could fix my current circumstances so that I wouldn’t feel the shame anymore. I thought that was completely normal, because I didn’t know that I could be COMPLETELY free of my shame.

Why? Because I forgot the power of having intimacy with the Holy Spirit. I started to look at spending time with Jesus as a time for me to ask Him what I was doing wrong; trying to feel convicted so that I could "fix" my circumstances to not look foolish to the people around me. I wasn’t trusting Him with my heart, and I wasn’t trusting myself to hear Him.

But what if the reason for spending time with Him has nothing to do with Him telling us what to do? What if God just desires to spend time with us, to pour out His ALREADY PAID FOR love and affection on us in the stillness? What if He’s not waiting to slap us in the face every time that we turn around to spend time in His presence? What if He actually paid the price for shame and condemnation to never have a foothold in our life?

Here’s the secret of this season that I’ve been learning: It’s not that I shouldn’t ask for advice from people. It’s just that I need to stop looking to other people to tell me what God wants to tell me in the secret place. I need to stop coddling my useless shame over not being perfect. I need to be okay with the messiness, because I can trust my sovereign God to guide my every step, and fill the desires of my heart with His abundant and undeserved love. I need to trust Him again. I need to trust myself to hear from Him.

So now, I’m slowly learning that when I pull out my journal and begin to talk to the Lord, I don’t have to expect Him frowning down on me, telling me I missed some sort of command that He had for the way I handle my friendships. Instead, I can sit in the warmth of His love, the essence of who He truly is. And gently, IF He so desires, He will correct my actions. But He is so much more concerned with what He is doing in my heart than He is with anything else, because out of the abundance of the heart comes our actions.

“The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.” Luke 6:45

This crazy dependance on His love translates so easily into loving others. It gives us the ability to pour out onto the people around us with ease, because we suddenly become infatuated with whatever His heart is on. His heart is always on loving the people around us.

“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with THE COMFORT WE OURSELVES RECEIVE FROM GOD.” 2 Corinthians 1:3-4

Our God is not a God that sits on the outside, telling us how we must change on the inside so that we can be like Him. He is a God that dwells inside us, constantly being true to Himself in His infinite love, beckoning us into deeper revelation of His comfort and love so that we can receive freely from Him. And the more that we receive freely from Him, the more that we will give like He does.

No amount of recognizing brokenness, introspection, and shame could ever be worth blocking Him from doing what He does best: pulling us into HIS reality. I’m not saying to deny the areas that you need to heal or grow from, but what I am saying is, stop going everywhere except for His presence to receive what you need. He knows how to make us whole again. And He’s the only one who can see our hearts in the fullness.

And I will leave you with a 4 line poem that I wrote in 2014:

I’m almost nothing left,

But a little flying speck

In the vastness of your love.

You will always be enough.