Linda's Journal - July 25, 2011

As I was reading in the True Vine this morning Andrew’s prayer at the end was so applicable to the next step the Lord is speaking to me about.

“Lord Jesus, in the faith that Thou art my Vine, and that I am Thy branch, I accept Your command as a promise, and take Your “even as I” as the simple revelation of what You do work in me. Yes, Lord, as You have loved, I will love.”

On Saturday, when I met some ladies for lunch, I was sharing my recent revelations about my mom and how that has been changing my perspective and relationship with Tom.  They asked many questions about my childhood and relationship with my mom back then and then one friend asked me if I loved my mom…  Hmmm.  That was a question I had not ever really thought about.  My initial unspoken response was “no”, I don’t think I really ever did “love” my mom.  And then that thought triggered a similar revelation I had about 10 years ago that I didn’t think I ever loved Tom either.  Again, there is a connection between my mom and Tom.  With further processing I was thinking about why I didn’t love my mom and it is mostly because I don’t think I really ever “knew” her enough to “love” her. I had so many defenses up protecting my heart, from the negative, I also blocked out the good. And evidently, that transferred into my marriage as well.

I have continued my quest to discover the ways in which my mom loved me and I am beginning to see her with new eyes and a new heart.  I can see so many times when she attempted to do something for me which I rejected and I remember times also that my actions and defenses hurt her as it showed her where I was and my lack of love and understanding of her heart and desire to love me.  Because of that I think she put up defenses too… we both wanted the same thing but our defenses shielded and prevented the very things we desired from each other.

Lord, it is only by YOUR love can we truly be healed and then are able to love others with that love.  Help me Lord to truly embrace the love you have for me so that I can in turn love others with THAT love and not my own, selfish, twisted and ineffective love.  “…Yes, Lord, as You have loved, I will love.”

Linda's Journal - July 17, 2011

More revelations! I am on a quest to think of and remember my mom and my childhood through different eyes.  I am looking for ways that my mom loved me that I missed as a child and didn’t receive from her.  One day last week as I was driving I thought of all the people she had caring for us while she worked and went to school. After a while, these couples would bond with us and we would bond with them and they would want to adopt us but then mom would remove us from that place and find another couple for us to stay with.  I would get angry because we were moved so often and never really felt settled and then would bond with people only to be whisked away to another place.  Well, as I was thinking about this, I thought, maybe that was one way in which mom loved us.  It would be SO much easier as a single parent to let us go and let others take responsibility for us but she didn’t want to give up and give us away!  She wanted to keep us and do all she could to be the best mom she could be at that time, working and going to school to care for us.  Wow.  I had not thought about it like that before.  Her way of loving us was to keep custody of us and not give us away!  That was a new thought for me.

Tom and I were talking Friday morning and he asked me if I had come up with ways mom loved me so I shared that thought with him.  Then he said, you know, considering how emotionally crippled she was… then the Lord gave him a thought and a visual that took his breath away, and then he continued;  If your mom’s “emotional” crippledness was revealed in the “physical” she would be so physically deformed she would not be able to function normally, yet we kept expecting her to! What caught his breath was that vision of her emotional condition translated in the physical… what she would look like.  I also was taken aback by the vision that came to my mind.  I saw her physically twisted and deformed in a crumpled heap on the floor, unable to stand or do anything a normal person could do.  Then I pictured her trying to hold me and nurture me from that position and failing miserably as I stood there expecting her to hug me as a normal person…  The thought came to me that it would be like a child who was handicapped physically and emotionally and expecting them to behave like a normal child and rejecting their efforts to show love.  I was completely undone.  She made so many efforts to do things for my sister and I but because of her emotional condition, it didn’t look at all like a normal persons love… but she still tried… over and over again, to be the mom she so wanted to be!!  I was overwhelmed with emotion as I saw my mom for the first time, making monumental efforts to love me, while I stood there expecting her to exhibit “normal” behaviors and missing what she WAS doing.  I spent the morning sobbing as the tables turned on me and I saw my own pride and selfishness in desiring to be loved a certain way and missing the love she was giving me.  So, I mentally got down on the floor and held her and received the love she had, in the way she could give it.  It was the most heart wrenching and amazing feeling I have had in a long time.  I was receiving the love and acceptance I had overlooked my whole life and it felt amazingly wonderful. Every time I think about it I get a fresh flow of tears falling down my cheeks because it is so wonderful and healing for me to finally receive my mom’s love after all these years.

Tom came up with a really good analogy as we sat and talked about this afterwards.  He said, from my perspective, my mom was handing me foreign currency and I was looking at it like, what do you expect me to do with this?!  I can’t use it or spend it here!  And I am doing the same thing with him when he loves me in “his” love languages and not mine.  I finally discovered the “exchange” rate and was able to convert it for my mom and was able to use it the way it was originally intended.  Now I need to do the same for Tom.  I need to see the way “he” loves me and be able to convert it into my own love currency and receive it.  I suppose that also can be applied to my relationship with the Lord too!

This has been a very emotional week.  God is showing me so many things!  I feel like this was such a HUGE step for me in the right direction and I am looking forward to experiencing the continued emotional healing and freedom that will result from this.  It has already made a difference in my relationship to Tom in how I am seeing and responding to him.  I am not seeing or feeling things in the old way but am now discovering new thoughts and perspectives that I have missed all these years. 

Thank you Jesus for that amazing revelation and healing moment.  Thank you for helping me to finally receive what my mom was so desperately trying to give but unable to in the “normal” ways.  I am receiving my mothers love in the way she was able to give it and I am so blessed.  Lord, I know that was YOU because only You can make those sort of things happen.  Now maybe I can see and feel YOU in new and wonderful ways too.  Lord, that is my hearts desire… to KNOW you deeper and better every day of my life.  In Jesus name, amen.

Linda's Journal - July 12, 2011

God does not waist anytime when we are “all in”!  After I wrote my journal yesterday I shared with Tom the revelation about my mom and the connection with my anger towards him.  Then I said that I am now on the quest to discover the things that he does that triggers the anger towards my mom.  I started to mention some things that I thought were contributors, like selfishness and not loving me in my love languages of acts of service and quality time and then Tom said “or your “perception” of selfishness or not doing things for you” he then said “I do a lot of things for you but if it isn’t what you want or are expecting, it is brushed aside as if it never happened”.  Hmmm… that thought hit home in two ways!  Not only have I been dissing my husband but how many times did I do that to my mom!  Perception is very powerful.  It makes things real in our minds but is it truly “reality” for others?  I needed to process THAT thought some more!  So, then I realized that the enemy had been drawing a mustache and a cape over my husbands image in my mind, making him the villain, but the Lord took that away yesterday morning with that realization!  I know that Tom is not perfect and still has his faults but I was adding to those my own perceived faults making him out to be so much worse than he is.  Now I can see him clearer without the mask and the cape and he is so much more attractive :)

So, then I went to my friend Susie’s house later in the day to bring her some dinner because she is moving and I was sharing with her these amazing revelations (she was one of the friends who help set me straight after listening to me rant).  At one point her eyes welled up with tears and she looked at me with such love and then reached over to hug me.  She started crying and as she held me tight said “I am so, so sorry Linda for what you endured as a child.  The very person who should have protected you from injury was the one who inflicted it”.  Then she released me and looked into my eyes with such love and tenderness and said, “You are so beautiful Linda…” and then expressed her thoughts about me that made me feel so loved and special”. Wow.  I suddenly felt like I was a child and she was my mom, and hearing for THE FIRST TIME that I was special and loved...!!!  I was overwhelmed.  But, I was able to receive those words and I will allow them to heal that part of my heart.

When I got home I shared that with Tom and allowed my emotions to continue to flow.  My mom was such a child when she became a parent she had no idea how to nurture or care for two young girls.  She was so caught up in her own life and needs she couldn’t see OUR needs.  I never really felt loved, nurtured or “special” to anyone as a child.  I felt like my sister and I were inconvenient, an imposition and always in the way. I say this but then need to also add that this was MY perception of things.  She probably did love me but didn’t know how to show it in the way I needed it or could see it.  So, through tears of feeling these emotions, I asked Tom if he ever felt like I was “inconvenient” or an “imposition”.  He said not really, maybe a moment or two but not as a dominating thought or feeling.  Then I thought about how I feel when he becomes impatient with me and my very strong emotional reactions to that and thought, maybe I am connecting that to the rejection that I felt so much as a kid?  Being a people pleaser I try so hard to please so that I won’t be rejected and his impatience probably touches that wound so I perceive that impatience as rejection. That was a huge connection!!

How many times do we do that to the Lord? We paint the “villain” mask over Him and think that He treats us like our parents and accuse Him of things that He does not do because our perception is tweaked!?  In yesterday’s Oswald, he said that God takes us through these things so that we can obtain a greater knowledge of Jesus Christ … If we don’t see Him with a true and clear perspective, then our “knowledge of Him is not true and correct… Lord, please reveal all the ways that my perception is distorted and I am not seeing you clearly!!  Please remove the “villain” mask from your image and help me see the TRUE YOU, the truth of your love and care and how much you cherish me and think I am special.

Linda's Journal - July 11, 2011

As usual, the Lord is working something out in me.  My journal entry of the things going on while Tom was in CA was missing some of the turmoil that was going on inside my heart and mind.  I was taking the bait the enemy was laying out for me with negative thoughts regarding Tom and I was hooked and the enemy was reeling me in!  I, once again, was stuck thinking about all the things Tom does not do instead of the things he does do and found myself getting angrier and angrier.  I was not pleasant towards him at all and I know that the “hot weather” here was not the only thing keeping him from wanting to come home!  During our flight home we got into a very heated argument which set a negative tone for reentry into NC.  Fortunately I have some really awesome friends who listened to me rant and rave and then said some things to help set me straight.  Then the Lord took over and, once the anger cooled off a bit, I was able to hear Him speaking to me again.  I was convicted yet again of focusing on the wrong things and allowing the enemy to drag me away from the truth, listening to his lies and seeing things from the wrong perspective.

In January, when Tom and I went to DC to visit Steve, God showed me that I do something I had never realized I did before.  He showed me that I have a tendency to “set Tom up to fail” in many ways and circumstance so that I can maintain my anger at him!  God played back a situation in my mind that happened in DC and showed me that I had a choice to let Tom know of something or not.  If I had said something to Tom, things would have been good, but I chose to NOT say something and then felt justified in becoming angry and throwing that situation in his face to maintain my anger… 

Since that time in January I have thought about that off and on… but mostly off.  But, upon our return from CA and between my friends and the Lord, I have been chewing on that more and more.  Since our return from CA things cooled down but there was still an underlying tension that kept some distance between us.  I spent a lot of my time processing things and catching my thoughts and taking them captive and seeing just how twisted I was perceiving things.  The Lord was really showing me how “passive aggressive” I was!!  I had not really thought of myself in those terms before but… I can’t help but see them now!  I saw how so many times my actions and thoughts would set Tom up and I really tried to stop doing that and if I did the Lord kept reminding me that I had no right to be angry if it was my choice to not communicate.  So, this last Thursday night Tom and I set some time aside to hang out together because things have been so busy we haven’t had much time with each other… which I think we were both ok with at that point.  But, the Lord had been working on me to the point where I was no longer angry at Tom but sincerely sorry for the way I had been thinking and treating him.  So, at dinner I was able to tell him all these things the Lord was showing me and apologized for my thoughts and passive aggressive behaviors.  I even described some of the situations in which I had set him up and then took responsibility for them.  Well that opened the door for Tom to share some things that were on his heart too and we had a wonderful night of emotional reconnection.  It felt good to be able to clear the air and feel close to him again.

So then, yesterday I got a call from one of my friends who had moved away and she just had to call me to share that she got the book, Power of a Praying Wife and how much it has been helping her.  She confessed to me that she had not been praying for her husband except “Lord change him”!  She was talking a mile a minute and I couldn’t get a word in edgewise so the Lord sparked a thought in my mind while she was talking.  I started thinking about the first time I read that book and how I also had not been praying for Tom because I was SO ANGRY with him the last thing I wanted to do was pray for him!! Then I thought, there it is again!  What is up with my desire to continually be so angry at Tom??  Then the Lord brought into my mind the thought of my mom… and then the light went on.  Oh my goodness.   I still have anger towards my mom that I have not dealt with and it is all pouring out on Tom!  You know they say that you marry the parent that you struggled with the most…  Tom is SO much like my mom in certain area’s that I am sure he is triggering things in me that are still wounded from my childhood.  The anger that I did not feel as a child is now bubbling up and flowing into my life and relationship with Tom.  Wow.  Now I am in the process of figuring out those area’s where my mom really let me down so that I can allow this anger to flow out in the right direction so it won’t flow out on Tom anymore!!

God’s planning is so perfect.  Today’s Oswald also spoke into this situation and is helping me to complete this picture:

A spiritually vigorous saint never believes that his circumstances simply happen at random, nor does he ever think of his life as being divided into the secular and the sacred. He sees every situation in which he finds himself as the means of obtaining a greater knowledge of Jesus Christ, and he has an attitude of unrestrained abandon and total surrender about him. The Holy Spirit is determined that we will have the realization of Jesus Christ in every area of our lives, and He will bring us back to the same point over and over again until we do.

How many times over how many years have I struggled with these thoughts of anger towards Tom??!!  Over and over again I have struggled with this anger (mostly during my PMSing) and I am just now GETTING IT!!  Wow.  Talk about a slow learner…  But, I have to believe that it is all in God’s perfect timing and believe that I couldn’t have gotten it until now.  As much as it would have been nice to get this earlier, the impact on me is much greater now, after struggling with it for so long, that I am determined to really dive in and get to the bottom of this. 

Lord, thank you for your amazing patience and loving care that you exhibit in our lives.  Our parents may not have done it right but You do and You love us so much that you desire health and wholeness in all area’s of our life… Mind, body, emotions and spirit. Thank you Lord for these revelations and for the grace to receive them.  Help me to continue to process and get to the bottom and the root causes of my anger and help me to release it in a healthier way.  In Jesus name, amen!

Did you "INVITE" or did you "GIVE"?

One day Tom and I were talking about God and bouncing thoughts and ideas off of each other and Tom made a distinction that really hit home with me (and I think it did him too!).  It is something that I still process and something the Lord continues to remind me of as I face my daily struggles in this world and with my flesh. The distinction Tom made, which I think is for all of us who call ourselves “Christians”, was: “Did you “invite” the Lord into your life or did you “give” your life to Christ?” Wow.  Those are two completely different things yet, I had not seen that before! I have often used the words “invite” or “give” interchangeable when talking about salvation and walking as a Christian but, really, they are two entirely different words!

Invitation

When I think of the word “invite” I see it as bringing someone into my life to participate in something that I designate.  So, to invite Jesus into my life would be like having the option of including Him in things or not.  I can invite him to join me for church, meals or to meetings or even hang a picture of Him on my mantle and talk fondly about Him with others or call on Him when I need help, comfort or support when things don’t seem to be going quite right in my life.  So basically, I can do all the things that I want to do and consider him as a convenience and a resource to call upon when needed.

To Give

Now when I “give” something to someone it is no longer MINE but it belongs to the person I gave it to.  I can no longer call the shots or control what happens to it.  To give your life to Christ would look completely different than inviting Him into it.  In effect we are saying, “Lord, I am your bondservant and I no longer live my life the way I want to (Galatians 2:20) but now YOU have control over my life. YOUR will be done… no matter what you ask of me, or how hard or illogical it is or what others may think, I am Your servant Lord and I surrender all my heart, mind, body and soul to You.”  Yeah, I think there is a little bit of a difference here between the two words...

When I look at scripture the disciples called themselves “servants” of Christ (or bondservants in the KJV).  The original word used is “doulos” which Thayer defines as:

1) a slave, bondman, man of servile condition 1a) a slave

1b) … one who gives himself up to another’s will…

1c) devoted to another to the disregard of one’s own interests

2) a servant, attendant

So, basically they considered themselves as slaves to Christ, giving their lives and themselves over to His will and disregarding their own interests being a servant and an attendant to their Lord!!  How many Christians do you see living like THAT in this day and age?!

What happened to the “Giving our lives to Christ” message in churches anymore?  When did that change?  How subtly different the new phrase is and how it just moved right in without any notice!?  Interesting, isn’t it?  I think I smell a deceiver in here somewhere, don’t you?  Now, you can just “invite” Christ into YOUR life and you don’t have to give up anything or GIVE your life to Him anymore…  It’s so easy, painless and convenient… anyone can do it!  

I love Oswald’s take on this:

The Conditions of Discipleship

Luke 14:26-27, 33 – “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters--yes, even his own life--he cannot be my disciple. And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple… In the same way, any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple.”

If the closest relationships of a disciple's life conflict with the claims of Jesus Christ, then our Lord requires instant obedience to Himself. Discipleship means personal, passionate devotion to a Person --- our Lord Jesus Christ... To be a disciple is to be a devoted bondservant motivated by love for the Lord Jesus. Many of us who call ourselves Christians are not truly devoted to Jesus Christ... We may admire, respect, and revere Him, but we cannot love Him on our own…

So, the question that comes to my mind at this point is, are we truly saved when we just “invite” Jesus into our lives or does salvation come when we “give” our life to Jesus?

Lord I pray that as we learn to “Love you with all our heart, mind, soul and strength…” (and even with our life) that you would show us what it really means to be a disciple, a bondservant to You and Your Kingdom. To give up our lives and surrender everything in them for service to You.  Give us a revelation of what it truly looks like in our lives, to be a servant of the Most High God, surrendering, yielding and giving our lives to You.  In Jesus name, Amen!