Friday, March 27, 2009

A (Continued) Work In-Progress, Part 2

Last weekend, I went to a small intentional/discipleship group (iGroup) with a few girls from my church. I went for a functional reason - one of the girls in the group oversees a ministry that I will soon be overseeing and I wanted to be a part of the transition. But, it ended up that the Lord had so much more in-store for me.

I need to give a bit more context for it to make sense:
As I mentioned in my previous post, I've been working through my mother/lonliness issues again. Recently, I summed up everything I was feeling in a joural entry, telling the Lord that "I believe that You and others love me...but I can't feel or embrace it. Somewhere, there's a disconnect. Please heal whatever the disconnect is and help me to feel, know and embrace the love you and others have for me."

In the moment, He worked profoundly in me through Psalm 31. (Read it here for yourself - specifically verses 2, 7-12, 14-17, 19-24 - to understand what I was feeling and the hope the Lord offered me.)

Then, at iGroup the other night, we were talking about and praying through the different personal issues/anxieties that we feel keep us from really being able to think about the world and offer hope, the One true HOPE, Jesus, to the world. I mentioned the whole "knowing but not being able to embrace being loved" thing and the girls prayed for me. There's no good way for me to explain the experience...other than it was profound. I felt really safe being as raw and broken as I was and was able to embrace the love being offered to me from the girls as well as from the Lord. While we were praying, I felt like the Lord spoke to me - revealing a lie I'd chosen to believe as a small child, that "I wasn't worth being loved." I confessed the lie outloud and prayed through it. And, honestly, while I know I'm not out of the woods yet, I feel like the prayer and freedom I experienced on Sunday night was huge, vital and a significant step in gaining greater healing and freedom.

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