Differently Enable vs. Disabled

This is a concept that I have been contemplating since last semester when I took Understanding Human Communication. In the textbook, “Understanding Human Communication”, Christopher Conklin is explained the following way: he was “born with abnormal arms. His left arm extends to the elbow then has one fleshy finger; his right arm is longer and has two fingers.” (Adler, 302) Yet, Chris says he is “differently enable, rather than disabled.” (Adler, 302) I see such truth in this statement, as I’m learning to see myself differently enabled rather than disabled too.

The journey with Myasthenia Gravis was terrifying at times but I mostly lived in a state of blissful denial. I found this place rather satisfying; after all I looked basically normal. I mean the snarl was easily dismissed as a funny looking smile and the constant tripping and falling down as good old clumsiness and even after the steroids when I popped like a blow fish the stretch marks where easily explainable as “I just got fat fast.” No matter the disability I was facing I quickly dismissed them and ignored what the cost of it all was.

But with POTS things have been so different. Maybe it’s the duration…Maybe it’s the intensity… Maybe it’s the timing… Maybe it’s having a friend that refuses to let me live in denial… Maybe it’s the age—I’m older now and supposed to be independent but I can’t be, no matter the reason, denial hasn’t worked for me in ignoring the fact that I have a disability this time.

Webster defined disability as the inability to do something (1) deprivation or lack especially of physical, intellectual, or emotional capacity or fitness (2) the inability to pursue an occupation or perform services for wages because of physical or mental impairment (3) a physical or mental illness, injury, or condition that incapacitiates in any way.

POTS has been a journey in through and all around the world of disability. I was 21 years old when I became sick with POTS. I lost my academic career, my job, most of my friends, and watched as countless dreams went up in smoke. I became confined to a wheelchair were I was fully dependent upon others for my most basic needs. It was HUMILATING! Not only does it pose enormous physical challenges, but the POTS and head/brain injury challenged my intellectual and emotional capabilities. Inabilities and deprivation seemed to become my new world.

It’s been a hard, nearly 6 years and by the Grace of God I’m better each day. You see I still have POTS and yet I’m gaining a life back. It seems I’m learning to live enabled differently rather then as disabled. In June, over a weekend camping trip (yes, I was able to go camping in JUNE!!) I went on a 12-mile bike ride—4 miles the first day and 8 miles the second day. I know it’s sounds IMPOSSIBLE for a POTS patient and especially for me but get this… I was enabled!!! I went during the cool of the day, used a tricycle, attached my two pulling dogs, and with April’s extra tug on the hills, I did it! Using all these techniques I was given back a huge part of my life I felt was lost.

My wheelchair, my cooling bandana, my tricycle, my dogs, my medicines, and even my glasses or a warm coat are all things that make my inabilities shrink and my abilities grow. They enable me to do things impossible to me otherwise. It’s still hard at times for me not to look at these things and feel ashamed because I need them but I can’t help but be so thankful that I have them because of what they give me back in life. I’m trying to take the lesson that Christopher Conklin teaches and truly see myself and others as differently enabled instead of disabled when we use the gifts God has given us in the form of tools.  These tools simple enhance our lives, so that we may enhance the lives of others.

And the anchor WILL HOLD!

A dream:

Chrysril and I were on board a ship that sat in the bay.  The bay was shaped like an “M” where rocks lined the outsides (I    I) and middle (V).  Water entered and exited the bay through the space left in between the rock outcroppings (e.g.–I  ~~ V ~~ I).  Skies suddenly blacken as thunderous rain clouds covered the area.  Mighty winds roared up and began tossing waves into the rocks.  Our ship became very unstable as the waves grew bigger and bigger.  Soon the waves were so big they were crashing down over the rocks and throwing our ship around.  Luckily, we were tossed to a soft corner where we watched as the sea threw a fit, so powerful, that it was lifting sunken ships off the bottom of the ocean floor and casting them in the bay, smashing them into the rocks.  Chrysil began to stuff life perseveres everywhere she could.  She didn’t know how to swim and it was only a matter of time before we were thrown overboard.

I didn’t know what to do.  We were just visiting some friends who took us out on their boat.  They were supposed to be right back.  They couldn’t get to us because of the sudden onset of this massive storm.  So, now two inexperienced seaman had suddenly became captains in the midst of the biggest storm this bay had ever seen.  In some sort of a miracle the phone on the ship began to ring.  Chrysil looked at me and I said, “DON’T answer it, we’ll get electrocuted!”  In her desperate attempt to reach for help she thought it must have been worth it because she picked up the phone that was damaged in our last shake by the sea and said, “Hello.”  No one answered.  But, suddenly we were able to hear voices on the other side of the phone.  It was Anne and she was saying how much she wished she could just tell us what we needed to do.  Chrysil and I began to SCREAM, “TELL US!  TELL US, WHAT TO DO!”  She couldn’t hear our pleading.  But, in this miracle she said, “If I could only tell them to go where we go fishing… If I could only tell them…” and then as she hung up the phone she said, “I hope they know what to do with the buckets.”

Suddenly Chrysil and I understood what Anne was telling us.  We had to leave the bay and go out in the midst of the raging sea or we’d be smashed into the rocks.  We gathered together every ounce of experience we had and steered the ship to exist the bay.  We had two choices and we didn’t know which was safer.  We headed to the right but suddenly realized if we didn’t make the right choice the waves would immediately crash us into the rock.  We steered the boat around again and cried out, “What way do we go?”  Suddenly, sitting on the shore appeared a very young Minnie and Dewayne.  They pointed to the left.  Chrysil and I just looked at each other and thought, “Well, that’s something.”  We proceeded to the left exist of the bay, despite the wave crashing into us and sweeping over the ship.

Though Chrysil and I had already tried several times to open the door to go to the bottom of the ship and hide, we hadn’t figured it out.  Yet, I knew we had too now.  We had to find rope to tie ourselves to the mast so we weren’t swept to sea.  We had to find the buckets to toss the water back off the ship.  We had to find the anchor and lower it so we weren’t lost at sea.

But I couldn’t help but wonder if we left the bay and tried to fight against the tumultuous sea, would the anchor hold?  Would it break from the ship?  Could it really hold us in place against those waves?  I was so scared.

I suddenly woke up.  And out of the midst of my being I heared a voice cry out to me over and over and over again, “THE ANCHOR WILL HOLD!  The anchor WILL hold!  THE ANCHOR WILL HOLD!”

I told the dream to April that afternoon and she shared with me this song:  The Anchor Holds by Ray Boltz

Enjoy!

My Journey, My thoughts – Part 10 of 10

Okay! So, this will be my final segment in the Insecurity series… and April said…”AMEN!!!”  I have a plethora of other posts I’ve started and would like to finish but have felt compelled to finish this out first. Thank you to those who have hung in there though it has taken me SO long to finish it. I have tried to separate the lessons, giving each one time to sink in; since this is how they came to me—slowly, over time, one after another, allowing the first one to sink in before the next one dripped down.

This final post is of a personal nature, as I discuss parts of each of the lessons I previously described. The first part (Part 1) of my journey required that I come face to face with my true condition. Paula White says, “You cannot conquer, what you will not confront, and you cannot confront what you will not identify.” (Deal With it!) I had to admit I had an issue. One of the hardest things for an insecure person to admit is that they are insecure; perhaps, because in admitting this fact they are exposing their very vulnerable selves.

I noticed in my classes this last semester that everyone thought they were very secure and a great leader. Yet I’ve found in life, secure people are just as hard to find as great leaders—each VERY RARE. The problem is that people rarely admit insecurity or poor leadership and as a result neither issue is confronted and conquered.  Sadly people are STUCK being just they way they are.  It’s living in denial. Living in deceit. I didn’t want to be such a person. I wanted to CONQUER these things and that meant I had to be honest with God and myself about where I truly was.

The next major lesson began with the word CONFIDENCE. It seemed everywhere I went that was the message I was seeing and hearing. I began to notice CONFIDENCE in people and the lack thereof in myself. I begin to pay attention to why I lacked CONFIDENCE and what situations affected me differently. I searched out CONFIDENCE and was attentive to it wherever I saw it. People continually began talking to me about CONFIDENCE. God was at work. It was in the midst of this message that the next revelations were birthed.

Part 2, tells a story of Bella, Duke Revelin and Jacob.  This story has so many jewels buried beneath its surface, but for now I’ll reveal just one.  Bella lacked confidence so she doubted herself, her abilities, her actions, and so forth.  Her doubt became an easy door for Jacob (the Deceiver) to access her through and take her off course and ultimately defeat her from accomplishing the King’s work.  I’m Bella and this has been the Deceiver’s plan of attack in my life.

I often found myself so trapped by doubt that I was defeated from the work God had asked me to do.  I knew what was right, what I wanted (and whom I didn’t—like a Mr. Duke Revelin (it means Pride, Rebellion)) yet my lack of confidence, in both my ability to hear God and more importantly HIS ABILITY to direct His lamb, caused me to be led astray.  I needed to have CONFIDENCE.  The kind of CONFIDENCE that says, “No matter what comes my way, me and God—WE CAN HANDLE IT.”

In Part 3, we unearthed another ploy on my CONFIDENCE.  I learned that focusing on my weaknesses and failures caused me to always try to be fixing myself.  As a result, I never had any CONFIDENCE because I didn’t see any VALUE in myself.  Instead I saw myself as broken and damaged, always needing fixed.  How could I have CONFIDENCE in something that I saw as completely unreliable?  And how could I change what I saw as unreliable, if I was completely focused on what was broken and needed fixed?  If I wanted to have CONFIDENCE and stop doubting myself, I had to have an eye transplant.  I needed to see myself the way God saw me.

This is where my word changed.  Instead of seeing the word CONFIDENCE everywhere I looked I started to see and hear the word VALUE!  God’s next message to me is that I was of tremendous VALUE.  The treasure box vision was a much different image of who I am then my damaged canned foods portrait.  Thankfully God’s vision is clearer than mine.  Since, this was such a different message for me to receive, it took months for Him to change my heart and vision.

He first had to establish a new relationship with me.  I’ve known Him by Friend, Savior, Provider and many other names but I’ve never known him as Father.  He began to reveal to me what a Father’s love looks like and how that Father’s love establishes VALUE.  I didn’t have the greatest model for a Father’s love and as a result I felt like my VALUE was wrapped up in my performance.  If I did well then I was accepted and loved but if I did not perform well I was not acceptable and was unlovable.  I didn’t know what it meant to be loved just because you belonged to someone.  But in Part 4, God showed me the kind of Father He was.  He loved me not conditioned on my broken efforts, but unconditionally on His ownership.

The next thing I had to learn was that I was better off broken lying at his feet than attempting to hold it together standing around Him.  In Part 5, I realized that it’s one thing to have a Father that loves you but it’s a whole different story to LET Him love you.  I had finally come to a place in my life where I trusted that I was safe in a broken prostrate state before him (and really better off).  I was ready to crumble my messed-up-self at his feet and let Him deal with the ashes of it all.

I’m sure the next part (Part 6) is God’s favorite in the whole story.  I know its mine.  I had finally lain at His feet, as a living sacrifice and was ready for come-what-may.  I never imagined what came next.  I’m holding back tears now as I’m trying to express it.  Through another one of His vessels, He told me, “What I have deposited in you, is so much greater than everything that has been stolen from you.”  In that instant, He not only validated YEARS of abuse with an, “I know it’s hurt you baby!” but he also told me, “its not been in vain.”  He validated it but also washed it away, so that I could see the treasures He had turned all the pain into.  It was the first time I began to see my true VALUE.  All those things I had been through, He had stored in me in the form of His golden lesson deposits.  He hadn’t let trash just pile up in me so I reeked.  The trash was just hiding what was really there.  He had made deposits that He planned on using.  I wasn’t just VALUABLE, I was PRICELESS.

This is where my word changed again.  Instead of seeing the word VALUE everywhere I looked, I started to see and hear the words AUDIENCE OF ONE! God’s next message to me was that I was to play my acts out to a theater filled with only one being…HIM.  If one other person snuck into that theater then something was thrown off.

In Part 7, I realized that in all my attempts to gain love and acceptance from people, I was attempting to serve many masters.  It was impossible to do and be all the things each individual wanted and in doing so I couldn’t be ME.

I had to accept the fact that they would either choose to love and accept ME or reject ME.  But, their love and acceptance needed to come out of ME being ME not in me doing what I could to shape me around what pleased them.  For in doing this, I became a person I didn’t know or like and a person that was not pleasing to God because I was not walking out MY destiny.  Furthermore, how could people every really love ME if I was never ME.  I HAD to be ME.

I couldn’t keep trying to chase after a train I’d never catch up to and a train that would never fulfill me.  It was an impossible and fruitless task.  My fulfillment comes from being ME and the only way to be ME was to connect to my Maker.  I needed to serve only one Master.  As Jesus became my AUDIENCE OF ONE, finding love and acceptance actually became a possible task.

I was opening up the gifts He was imparting and receiving them for myself, the person they were intended for.  It has been out of this position I have begun to find more fulfilling relationships that reinforce the value God sees in me.

In Part 8, God addressed my value system. The reality of the saying, “We are part of this world, but not of this world,” really hit home. Without realizing it I had adopted Worldly Values and I didn’t even consider it until they begin to produce dreadful fruit in my life.  The fine line between part and of was suddenly muted.  Proverbs 23:7a says, “For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he.”  Thoughts I had chosen to believe were empowered to produce fruit in my life.  My feelings of insecurity and inferiority were inedible fruit, but still fruit.  They were allowed to grow and thrive because I believed the lies that I needed to be physically attractive, intelligent, and wealthy to be of value.  But, this was not true for my AUDIENCE OF ONE.  These are far from what He valued.  Instead, I had let others enter into my theater and I was becoming servant to THEIR demands.

It was pertinent to kick out the unwelcome audience members and seek again my AUDIENCE OF ONE to find out what pleased Him.  This is the only way my feelings would align with His promises for security.

In Part 9, God sealed the message of an AUDIENCE OF ONE.  He had to show me how important it was to have a single focus in the race of life.  As though a blacked tunnel ended with a light that was Jesus, and He was the only thing to see in it.  This kind of a focused gave me patience (with myself and my journey) and it gave me peace.

A focus on the other horses made me fall apart because I was comparing myself to them.  I was comparing my journey to theirs and my wait to theirs and getting huffy and puffy about how it didn’t seem right to me.  This comparing was like selling tickets to my theater and running a TV show to find a better Master.  I sold a ticket to enter my theater to every person I compared myself too and then in questioning God’s work on me I was running an interview with the new audience members for another Master.  And as I’ve already learned… More than an AUDIENCE OF ONE causes insecurity and the wrong AUDIENCE OF ONE does too!

I had to stop ticket sells by refusing to compare and shut down interviews by accepting God’s sovereignty.

WHEW!!!  This has been a journey.  Yes, it has continued and I believe will continue, but I have concluded what my heart desired to share.  For everyone out there that is struggling with this issue, HANG IN THERE!!!!  God is going to meet you where you are and take you on a journey.  Your journey will be so unique and special as it speaks to the deepest part of who you are.  He will do this so He can mend and heal every place that needs touched within you.  Be healed!

Frantic Race Horse – Part 9 of 10

I saw a racehorse. She had pulled up to the stall and she was ready to run. In fact so READY, that she was a little on the wild side. She snorted, panted and neighed with fervor. Then began stamping violently and thrashing her head from side to side. She jumped up on her hindquarters and kicked as hard as she could at the gate. She slammed her hooves into the gate, trying to open up the door. Her eyes were blood shot, spit and dirt flew with her struggle. I could see her frustration as she tensed every muscle and cried out for the race to begin.

She would never run that race. Her focus was off. The delays she had face before getting to the race and then the long tedious wait in her pin had shifted her focus from the finish line to the other racers.

You see if they released her in that moment she would run out of the gate without a purpose and with a misdirected focus. She would run in aimless circles, endangering herself and the other racers. No, she would miss this race…

But the next race… She would be focused. Intent. Passionate as before, but directed. Directed to the finish line. Directed to the goal. Directed to run the race. She would run with composure according to her true character. She would run with patience and perseverance. She would run for an Audience of One.

Values – Part 8 of 10

I learned about my values next. I learned how my values were not God’s values and as a result I was feeling inferior. This was a long journey that occurred over many months. The primary source that God used in revealing this truth to me was the Practical Christian Living study I participate in from the WEEC (World Evangelistic Enterprise Corporation) Mailbox Club.

I’ve learned that what we value determines how we feel about ourselves. This comes from a few interrelated principles: #1. What we assign as valuable, we use to determine our own worth. #2. What we choose to believe determines how we feel. #3. What we think determines our actions.

“The world puts its highest value on three things: 1. Physical attractiveness, 2. Intelligence, and 3. Money.” (Lesson 4, page 1) In looking at the three principles and these worldly values this is what we find:

#1 In the world, if I’m physically attractive, intelligent and have money, I’m of tremendous value. If I have none of these three, I have little or no value.

#2. If I believe that someone is valuable based on these criteria then it is going to determine how I feel about other people and myself. I will feel inferior if I’m less then the bar, and good if I meet it.

#3. If I value these things, I am going to act on them. I will strive to be beautiful, have money, and achieve greater intelligence.

I often found myself feeling LESS THAN. I was constantly feeling like I didn’t measure up and wasn’t good enough for some reason or another and I didn’t understand WHY! After reading this study I was starting to GET IT. Suddenly, my eyes were opening up to the fact that I had bought into the World’s Value System and as a result was measuring myself up to the wrong measuring stick. My thoughts and therefore actions had been being directed by the wrong source and as a result I was ending up an emotional wreck. No matter how hard I tried I always fell short of being beautiful enough, rich enough, or smart enough. I tried to excel in one or another because I realized the futility of being able to have them all. Yet, I still felt like an utter failure because I always felt I was never good enough no matter what I tried. I hadn’t even realized I had bought into this Worldly System. Instead of seeing things with the clear 20/20 vision God provides, my vision had become muted through the lying lenses of the World.

I believe God puts the highest value on these three things: 1. My heart condition, 2. My obedience to Him, and 3. My open hands to others. These values create a much different person. As my life begins to reflect this change of mind, the spirit of inferiority has been crumbling off my back. I’m sitting straighter and breathing easier as my values are being reassigned to their proper places and I’m reassured that He’s Still Working on Me.

The Phantom Train – Part 7 of 10

I was sitting in Church and Pastor Tom began to retell the story “The Phantom Train.” Instantly, I felt a twinge of irritation as I had already heard this story and I thought “could this be a sign of the future, the retelling of something over and over again that we have all heard. Oh, I hope not…” But, a stern small voice interrupted my inward complaining with a gentle nudge, “Somebody, probably needs to hear it again.” Feeling convicted in my selfishness I sat a little straighter and stopped scribbling. Then a sudden thought came, “What if…that somebody… is me.” Attentively, I lean in to listen to the retelling of “The Phantom Train.”

The Phantom Train is a vision that Pastor Tom had of a man who was vehemently running on the tracks, away from a train that was chasing him. He was given a word that the man needed to stop running and face the train and when the man did this he would find the train was really just a phantom. The man whom this vision was for had been running from a warrant for years but when this word was given he faced the situation and found out all charges had been dropped. He had settled for so much less in life because of a fear that didn’t even exist.

As I begin to attentively listen to the retelling of this story I saw a picture of myself. But, rather than the train chasing after me I was desperately chasing the train. To me, this was the train of LOVE and ACCEPTANCE and its cargo were all the people that I was desperately trying to receive love and acceptance from. No matter how hard or fast I ran, I was never fast enough to get on that train. I was always struggling to just get close enough and then it was always outside my finger tips.

You see, it was a PHANTOM. The train doesn’t exist. The unconditional love and whole acceptance I needed and wanted couldn’t come from all those people on that train. The only place it could from is Jesus. I had to stop running after people for that fulfillment. Letting the train go off into the distance and rather turn around and face my Maker.

For years, I had the practice for re-gifting without unwrapping the gifts Jesus gave me. As a result, I was left feeling drained, worn out and unloved. I had gotten things backwards. I was so focused on running after that Phantom Train to find my love and acceptance that the very gifts I was receiving to confirm these things in me I was just throwing out to the train. Instead, I needed to unwrap the gifts, receive them for myself and let them impact me. As this occurs, I find that I feel love and accept them, then as they bubbled over in my life they would naturally affect those around me. He is the source of love and acceptance and when my eyes are set on Him, I’m fulfilled.

Deposits of Value – Part 6 of 10

Deposits by God

In July, Jim Degolyer gave a message that was incredibly healing. Here are a few quotes I wrote down from his message: “When you see how much God loves you and treasures you, it changes you. Then it changes how you see others. Loves not based on your performance but on His workmanship. We live in a whole world full of people naive to how beautiful they really are —God makes beautiful things.”

After the service I went up for prayer. Jenny, a woman I had only briefly met up to this point, had a word for me. She said, “what God has deposited in you, is so much greater than everything that has been stolen from you.” As she spoke these words I began weeping, heavily. I felt as though billowing waters were washing over me and cleansing me. Washing stuff away. It was as if I was being mightily cleansed from years of garbage that had been dump on me. Then the Lord gave me a vision of myself. I saw a warehouse which seemed as though it was filled with trash. Piles upon piles of TRASH. As I weeped and weeped a cleansing flood came through the warehouse and began to clear out the trash. Then I saw that it wasn’t as much trash as I had thought. The trash was heaped on top of rectangular shaped stacks of solid gold bricks, all neatly stored.

Over the next few weeks God continued to minister to me through this vision. When I left the church that day I could still see a few discarded soda cups which left dried sticky spills on the gold, a few coffee grounds here and there, some moldy orange peels, and a few other pieces of miscellaneous trash but the majority of what I saw in the warehouse was stacks of golden bricks. I realized that God had been making deposited into me over the years and that I hadn’t even noticed it because of all the junk I had to deal with in my life. I mean, with all God had vested in me he had made me TREMENDOUSLY valuable and I hadn’t even noticed. Then I realized that no matter how sticky or stinky those gold bricks were… it didn’t change their value. They are still worth they same. You see, I’ve spent years so focused on the TRASH in my life that I never saw what my real value was. Jenny said it perfectly, “what God has deposited in you, is so much greater than everything that has been stolen from you.” I needed to redirect me eyes from all my losses to what God had given me through it and despite them.

WOW. This simple word has brought me such victory.

I’d rather be the sinful woman – Part 5 of 10

In June, John Erwin said, “A Pharisee is someone who is a knower, keeper, and enforcer of the law.” He was speaking on Luke 7 and using verses 36-55 he contrasted the woman who was a sinner and the judgmental Pharisee. The sinful woman knew her indebtedness to Jesus and in that condition she put herself before him for his judgment. She found forgiveness. Whereas the Pharisee, felt he had somehow earned his position with Jesus by all his right living and doing. He found a heavy reprimand. It was the sinful woman who pleased Jesus not the self-made Pharisee.

As the sinful woman recognized her own need for Christ she was able to truly allow him to affect her and be touch by him. While the Pharisee was so busy trying to be something worthy of Jesus he wasn’t being affected by Him. He was focused on himself rather than on God. While the sinner had realized her indebted condition and laid it all out there. There’s something freeing about being naked before God.

I’ve lived for so long like the Pharisee. Trying to be the knower, keeper and enforcer of the law in order to become better in and of myself, but I continually failed then felt like I failed God. I guess I hadn’t realized that he created me needy. I’m needy for Him and it seems only when I let Him fulfill me, am I made better—well, more like Him. I simply needed to come to the place where I accepted myself, as the mess I am then presented my offering to God of me—ashes.

So, I’d rather be the sinful woman who recognizes her indebted condition and therefore lays herself before Jesus. I don’t want to continually try to hold it all together in myself, causing distance between me and Jesus. After all, the fact of the matter is… I CAN’T hold it all together. But, He can.

A Father’s Love – Part 4 of 10

One day, Darren said to me “Rachel, do you really believe God loves you?” and I honestly answered, “Well, sometimes. I feel like God loves me when I do all the right things, never make mistakes and follow a strict Godly schedule.” I instantly saw an anguish come over Darren and with an uneasiness I braced myself for what could come my way, yet, Darren pleasantly surprised me. In overwhelming love Darren said, “Let me tell you something Rachel, about a Father’s Love, there’s not one moment that ever goes by that I don’t LOVE my kids. No matter how they act or what they do. I always love them.” The impassioned emotion compelled me and the Holy Spirit begin to reveal truth to me.

In Blue Like Jazz Donald Miller says, “Sometimes you have to watch somebody love something before you can love it yourself. It is as if they are showing you the way.” After that conversation, I begin to watch Darren carefully and observe how he felt and behaved towards his children. I observed a different kind of Father’s Love. As a result the value I have for myself is being restored. I have realized that my faulty performances and desperate attempts at earning God’s Love were fruitless. I already have it. I just had to receive it. Instead, of me pushing God away in my unworthy shame, I realize He accepts me. He embraces the unworthy simply because of their position in Christ, they are HIS. Seeing God’s unfailing love for me has helped me to love me. After all, my daddy loves me.

This conversation led to a challenge of not reading my Bible. I know it sounds sacreligious. But, so much of my relationship with God had become about my performance and not about a relationship with him. I didn’t know how to connect with God. I felt like as long as I did my “duty” I had made him happy, yet in this I had missed the heart of God. He wanted to be more then a taskmaster to me. I took this very difficult challenge and struggled through several months but eventually I learned to relationally commune with God. This has been essential in transforming my life from the head walk with Christ to the heart walk. As a result of the more intimate relationship I enjoy with God I can more readily accept the gifts He so freely gives me, like love. And His gifts transform my life.

A peek into my soul – Part 3 of 10

In March, I attended some training on the Prophetic. At the end of the sessions we were randomly paired to practice in a safe environment the things that we had learned. A woman whom I had never met came up behind me and began to pray for me. God gave her a picture of me. She saw a beautiful treasure box. All the edging of it was seamed with Gold and it was adorned with enamored purple. When she opened it up the inside of it was filled with Gold coins. This was God’s vision of me. She said I needed to stop focusing on my weakness so much and instead begin to see myself how God sees me.

At the moment I couldn’t accept this picture of myself. I smiled politely, nodded and accepted the thought kindly but felt like it was really for someone else. I couldn’t accept what she was seeing because I saw myself as damage goods. The picture I had of myself was of can foods at the grocery store; beat up, with no labels and usually filled with something nasty but edible and since they came at a discounted price, somebody wanted them.

After I left the picture kept nagging at me and I felt like I needed to pray about it. I called her later with a more open heart. She explained that I was focusing on my failures and weaknesses but that’s not how HE sees me. He saw me as ROYALTY—His princess or Queen. She explained that this diverted focus had been a ploy of the enemy to get me to always doubt myself. God was calling me to a deeper confidence.