Sometimes I get a little nervous to be so raw and vulnerable…
But then I get those comments that come in from other women who are fighting the SAME BATTLES and I realize that we are NOT alone and we are not meant to fight alone. Seriously. WE ARE MEANT TO BE BOLD!
I was so richly blessed by multiple comments, emails and text messages in sharing my blog post on Friday. What is funny to me is that I didn’t even set out to write that post, it just kind of gushed out of me! I felt the Holy Spirit speaking through me as I was soaking in the prand I knew that other women needed to know that they didn’t need to live under fear or insecurity.
Comparison is a cancer and kills the human heart. It affects every part of the way we see, perceive and hear one another, and as I got more and more feedback, I realized that the enemy’s best tactic is to silence and isolate us to believe we are alone in the journey. That is why it is so important to be rooted and grounded in the Word of God, so that when the attacks and accusations come, we have the correct weapons to fight back!
So that brings me to the little nugget of insight I felt this morning as I was reading through Psalm 139…
I was reading verses 2-3 this morning and started to cross reference the verses. “You KNOW when I sit down and when I rise up; You DISCERN my thoughts from afar. You SEARCH out my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways.” -Psalm 139:2-3
As I have read this Psalm over the years, I actually saw this portion as a somewhat “positive” light, in the sense that He knows every part of me. (Which is very true!!) I often felt warm and fuzzy reading this, never looking a bit deeper into the scripture as to how The Lord was communicating this passage.
When these verses are cross referenced, they actually bring you to scriptures that articulate the reality that God KNOWS and SEES the wickedness of mans heart. Nothing is hidden from Him. NOTHING. I read and re read the verses again and again, and was reminded of Song of Solomon 1:5 that says “I am very dark, but lovely”
WHAT A POWERFUL VERSE THIS IS! The God who SEES the motives, intents and deepest fears and insecurities of our heart ALSO calls us lovely. He sees past the sin that so easily ensnares us, and knows the end from the beginning. God, the tender, yet powerful Father of glory knows the perfect amount of pressure that is needed to purify us and perfect us in love.
It makes me reflect upon my own life… My thoughts, my motives, my real intentions in all the things that I do… and it makes me wonder if I am really walking in alignment with Him and His leadership. If fear is my weakness, then LOVE is the agent that will set me free IN CHRIST. Fear isolates, steals and destroys His voice of truth. Fear causes us to cower in shame. Fear tells us He is not loving and that it is not safe to approach His throne of grace. Yet the Word of God says that through our darkest moments, He calls us beautiful! He enjoys me, loves me, even LIKES ME in the midst of my weakness. When I cry out to Him in repentance and submission, He is faithful to search me out and deliver me.
I don’t have to be bound by fear. I don’t have to live in a posture of insecurity and locked in the penalty box of mistakes. God sees and knows that I am weak. He knows that things in my life have produced a lack of trust, but He is mighty to pull us out of the pit and set our feet on the truth of His word. Do we see Him this way? Do we trust Him this way!? He loves us as we walk along the journey! He delights in us when we stumble and call upon Him for help. He longs to meet us in the place of our weakness.
And this is why we love Him! His compassion and kindness is never ending. Without the spirit of truth we are bound to fear. Yet by the power of His blood and the agreement with His word, we can walk in the freedom God longs to give. Let us be rooted and grounded in His WORD today. Let us agree that nothing can be hidden from His sight, and He longs to set us free from those things that have held us captive for so long.
Call upon His precious name today. Start a conversation about the pain that plagues you. He is already intimately acquainted with your ways and knows the condition of your heart. He is simply looking for a repentant heart that is not ashamed to approach His throne of grace with all boldness. Look to Him. Talk to Him. He is waiting for you and He loves you so much.
“Arise My love, My beautiful on and come away; for BEHOLD the winter is past, the rain is over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth, the time for singing has come!” Song of Solomon 2:10-12
Rise up today and stand as you were meant to be!
Walk in the confidence of His love!
He is so faithful to carry you along the way!
So heres the real deal…
I struggle with insecurities. BIG TIME.
Now in all honesty, I have received AMAZING breakthrough in the past few years from pain and rejection that had plagued me for YEARS. His kindness really is the most wonderful blanket of love and acceptance, but something happened to shift my entire world…
I GOT MARRIED.
Yup. I said it. Every single woman’s DREAM, the idol of our thoughts and the obsession of our problems forever being wiped away. “Marriage will fix everything” I thought. “Marriage will fill the ache of loneliness that always seems to tug at me” I believed… WRONG. So so so wrong.
I think I gained a glimpse of the shift in my engagement. Here was this adorable, tender and lovesick man, who ardently loved weak, stubborn and anxious little me. He preferred me, fought for me and loved me with a pure heart. Yet the ache was still there… Anyone go through a similar transition?
Then the beautiful DAY happens, honeymoon whirlwinds us together and we come back home to MASSIVE transition in our move to Georgia. “Oh it will all settle down in a few weeks…” Or so I thought. Little trickles of pain, fear, frustration and insecurities kept popping up and in all honesty I felt like I was at square 1 again. Like I didn’t know which way was up, or how to find the air to breath. I was trapped underwater, and fear was drowning my peace.
I was worried I wouldn’t be a good wife and that he would realize he married the wrong woman. I feared that if the house wasn’t perfectly clean, dinner on the table and if I was not the prized trophy wife with the perfect little body, he would distance himself from me and wish for a better life… I feared so many aspects of marriage, manifesting old wounds and assumed he was always just “a little bit” frustrated with me. So I would puff up, project fears upon the one man who saw past my pain, and recluse inside of myself. This went on for the first few months and I couldn’t figure out why he hadn’t given up on me. Everyone else had at this point…
But instead of pulling away from me, my husband pushed through. He spoke life over me, prayed truth into me and wouldn’t let me spiral into my old patterns of coping with pain. Patience. Tenderness. Real love. I never knew that another person could love such a weak and broken heart. A heart that I had THOUGHT was pretty good, fairly steady and healed. Oh did The Lord have such a curve ball up his sleeve for me!
I knew deep down in my last year of being single, that I had come as far as I could “alone” and would not receive the next “breakthrough” in my heart until my husband came. I didn’t know why I felt this way, I just knew that something was beyond my grasp and I needed him to come and fight WITH me and ALONGSIDE of me. Little did I know that The Lord was about to peel me back like an onion with multiple layers of wounds and pain that could only be touched, healed and restored by a husband who covered me and loved me as Jesus did.
I was stunned at what was buried beneath the surface. Scared because he could see everything. When you live with roomates, you can close the door and stew in your pain ALONE, but in marriage, you sleep NEXT TO the one who sees everything. Yet somehow I was comforted by my husbands resilience and consistency. Month rolled into month and I was shocked that I was so scared of loosing him… I didn’t even know where this insecurity came from. Fear drove me to hear the lies and whispers of the enemy. Fear of such ridiculous accusations. Fear of the unknown. Fear of making a mistake. Fear of failure that would ultimately lead to rejection. It would ebb and flow, differing in intensity from month to month, but under the surface the fear lingered.
But something snapped in me a few weeks ago. I was tired of living afraid and tired of projection the same worries on a husband who has shown me nothing but kindness, faithfulness and patience as I fought the demons that had become so familiar. I wept with him one night and he said to me that it was time to stop hearing the voice of the enemy about my life, and to come out from living under insecurities. I don’t know why, but it was like his authority snapped me back into reality and I knew I had to ground myself in the Word. I needed truth to fight the lies and the Word of God to crush the accusation.
So I felt The Lord lead me to take the entire month of July and meditate and study Psalm 139. I am so excited because its one of my favorite Psalms, but I have never actually taken time to dive into it verse by verse. Joy has flooded my heart, and I know that if I could know the Lords heart and thoughts over me, I will be well equipped with the weapons needed to fight the accuser that would come to assault me.
Psalm 139:1 says “Oh Lord, you have searched me and KNOW me!”
I love this because if anyone can sees the dark places of our hearts, its The Lord. Yet I always seem to forget that. I assume He is angry and disappointed, yet in reality, He sees my pain, and produces the perfect amount of pressure to make my heart break free and come alive in love. He sees me and He KNOWS me. He made me in His likeness and image and I have to believe that He actually likes me! He likes my personality, my sense of humor, my dreams & passions and the way I love Him in return. He knows me and loves me! The Song of Solomon says in 1:5 that “I am dark but lovely”! Though I am walking out of darkness into His glorious light; though I am walking through the process of sanctification and I make mistakes, He sees me as BEAUTIFUL! He loves the process! He truly is the one who leads my to streams of living waters and is my good and tender Shepherd.
So I leave you with this thought… Life comes at you, especially in huge transitions, and that which you have built upon the temporal will not last. We must look to Jesus the Author and Perfecter of our faith and know that He will lead us to run the race so that when we stand before Him on THAT DAY we will be holy and blameless in love. I want to live a life that is free from insecurities. I don’t want to reckon myself to my old life, but see that I am a new creation in Christ and He has made a way for me to come to Him. I want to live my life in a way that testifies and prophesies of His glory and worth. So look at those things that hold you captive, lay them at the foot of the cross, and dig into the truth of His word that sets the heart FREE.
I am on a journey to living free from fear and invite you along. Feel free to share your thoughts or your own struggles, so that we can agree in truth with one another, and see the breakthrough that God intended!
In His presence there truly is FULLNESS OF JOY! Oh precious Jesus give our hearts JOY today!
TONIGHTS DEAL-
In celebration of the 4th of July, and out nations FREEDOM, we are running a FREEdom Flash Sale!
All orders receive FREE shipping & handling!
All orders over $35 will receive a FREE pair of earrings!!
All orders over $50 will receive a FREE necklace!!!
Celebrate FREE and Shop Happy!
To qualify for the SALE, heres what YOU do:
1. LIKE this status!!! (Go ahead and LIKE the page too!)
2. SHARE THIS STATUS with your friends network!
Let me know when your order is COMPLETE and leave me an email address. I will send you an invoice through PayPal!
That’s all you have to do to receive the sale! Help me spread the word to YOUR friends about affordable, hand made, one of a kind jewelry 🙂
SHOP HAPPY!
All items can be found HERE: https://www.facebook.com/youareallfair/photos_stream
And HERE: https://www.facebook.com/youareallfair/photos_albums
I am sitting here today reflecting on the reality that I am 31 years old, just crossing over 9 blissful months of marriage to my best friend, and I am truly the happiest I have ever been! Now don’t get me wrong, we have gone through some trying times with financial challenges and me being so sick for months, but at the end of the day, I get to do it all with my best friend. I get to wake up to his sweet little face and hear him say “good morning my love” and it makes every hard day worth it.
Let me tell you this much- I am SO glad I waited for God’s best!
I married a man of compassion, faithfulness, tenderness, and consistency. He shows me the face of Jesus every day, and serves me relentlessly. Often I cry, wondering what I did to deserve such a gift as a husband. SERIOUSLY. He puts up with my crazy, loves me through my stubbornness and calls me higher into who I am supposed to be as a daughter of God. He is my best friend. He makes me laugh, sings silly songs with me, and always tries to find the silver lining when all I can see is grey.
I love you Justin Wade Thomas, and cannot believe we are 3 months away to celebrating our 1 year!!! What a gift you are to me xox
