Worry. It has been my lifelong companion. I have clinical depression only exacerbated by years of emotional abuse that culminated in a thirty year time frame. My mom has been my anchor in the family - always standing up as my go-to - we have lifted each other up in love. Both of us were broken by betrayal and loss - bound up in love - love heals wounds. Love is God. When love is at work in the world it is the Holy Spirit - God in motion - moving and guiding us to love and peace.
The Holy Spirit is the indwelling of God in our hearts - a gift of immeasurable unfathomable grace. It is the life that kindles the fire of every heartbeat and every breath of the lungs. The Holy Spirit wants to speak to us - are we ready to listen to the divine perfect guidance of the SPIRIT of GOD within us?
The past year has been a culmination of an end of years of struggle and upheaval in my life - abuse and pain, heartache and despair. Throughout the trials I held strong to the faith in God - but as I cross out of the desert years of the wasteland of fear and woe that left me broken - I discovered while my love for God was pure my faith strained to trust in God's love. How could God love me when so much pain kept happening? I felt like a failure because I did not live up to my own inflated expectations. I felt like a failure because I was not doing as well as those who sought to harm me (I"m not smart enough, or successful enough) - these are words I heard my whole life and I started to internalize it and let it corrode my self confidence.
My reliance on God was completely invested in trusting the forgiveness of sins and knowing God would grant mercy and allow me into heaven - a powerful gift, but in prayer I found myself assuming God had too many other things on HIS plate to help me. I sought the WORD of God and studied the Bible because of my love for God. I knew God loved me - but I began to trust my brokenness rather than God's faithfulness - I got so caught up in fear and anxiety that instead on leaning on God for understanding and asking the Holy Spirit for discernment - I kept cutting myself on the shards of broken fragments of past pain, I was paralyzed in the dead roots of a past unresolved - instead of turning over that fear and anger to God.
There were times i felt so oppressed by my pain and the hurt - the loss of love, the abandonment and unworthiness I nearly committed suicide - I had that sort of despondency 0 I felt I let God down and I even asked our Father in heaven - why he formed me in the womb.
I was led by the Spirit during that trial to Deuteronomy 30:This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live
We are called to CHOOSE LIFE. For a species that is so survivalist - innately doing whatever it takes to 'survive' we often choose death - spiritual death and make choices that harm the flesh and spirit. In choosing fear we forsake the trust of the blood of Christ that can bind us safely in all trials with fortitude and flight in the SPIRIT.
I trust in Jesus is something we often say but struggle to back up in our actions - our mind snarled around knotted worry that tempts us and wears us down - we walk with the weight of fear - it is a ten ton vicious prison - a heavy yoke around our neck.
Jesus commands us not to worry and to cast all our anxieties on us because HE cares for us. That sounds great in theory - but in practice we struggle in our human nature to turn over worry to God - we claw at our fear and try to control every aspect of our lives - we grasp at straws - suffocating the light and life of the Spirit that fuels us int he process.
A few weeks ago I was deep in prayer - begging desperately for some direction - but all I could think about was my worry - future, finances, housing,health - I could not simply rest in God's peace -even my petitions were so thorny and twisted the roots were out of fear - not faith - my intent was right in searching God for help - but God reminded me through HIS SPIRIT - 'Adele until you stop worrying I cannot speak to you - at least cast a little of this on me.'
Over the past two months, thread by tedious thread of worry and doubt I've handed over to Christ - and The Holy Spirit. I still find myself frustrated when I don't hear the SPIRIT - or I find peace out of reach - but I rein my senses in and remembering I have to CHOOSE to let the SPIRIT work and sometimes the journey of igniting the spiritual fire of TRUTH is a process that takes time to refine the impurities and completely extinguish the dark spaces within ourselves.
Darkness likes to hide - we all have fears and regrets we don't want to rupture - but until we let them come to the light and hand them over to God we'll be fighting within ourselves.
I had a dream last night that spoke volumes to me. I was in the process of turning on St. Mary's Street to walk to my old house when in the middle of the road a huge oak - dead without any leaves and white-ashen appeared - I heard a voice 'it is okay to let go' - I think the tree is a symbol of my deep roots in the past and the problems in my family tree that have left me feeling cursed and forsaken. The tree is dead - and yet it felt alive because I was allowing the tree to live in my present. I needed to turn away and move forward because when God brings us out of a destructive situation he does so with extreme care - he doesn't want to fix the broken shards of a past that is cursed by sin and death - God brings us into new life witht he SPIRIT and Christ makes a home in our hearts with the SPIRIT.
Turning oneself over completely to the Holy Spirit is not easy - I am still on the journey. The journey is one of fortitude and redemption. Every second I am endowed with the peace of SPIRIT the unquenchable fire of hope, love and faith fills my being and ignites my heart to CHOOSE LIFE.
I am finally letting the dead roots of my past, the snarled knots die and I am planting new seeds in the promises of Christ where the Holy Spirit will guide me and keep me safe in the shelter of the Most High.
Praise be to the Holy Trinity
Questions I know you have - I pray for the Spirit to guide me but I don't feel the SPIRIT within me - I feel to lost? I have also been led astray by this doubt, but the SPIRIT moves like a fierce loving whisper - often sparking our intuition or prompting us to take action - the more you listen to the cues the deeper the relationship will go.
For instance if you see something having a hard time carrying groceries - and you are prompted to help them - that is The Holy Spirit. If you are prompted to read a certain piece of scripture and it speaks to the heart of your concern - that is the Spirit at work. If you are on a hike and feel an overwhelming peace of the beauty of your surroundings - that is the SPIRIT at work.
Jesus promises we will receive the Holy Spirit if we ask Jesus into our hearts and we will receive the gifts and the fruits of the spirit in the grace of Christ's suffering, love and resurrection as well as our own labors in leaning on Christ for all understanding.
Sometimes the easiest way to start a conversation with the Holy Spirit is a prayer and reading a few bible verses. Be willing to truly turn yourself over to HIS care and wonders will never cease in your life of faith.
We have a choice - free will is a gift and a burden - we must be willing to engage our hearts in God's SPIRIT otherwise we will die. So if you are going to CHOOSE on this narrow path - CHOOSE Life - life is always abundant in God's Holy SPIRIT - even when we are faced with insurmountable trials - God grants us the fortitude, wisdom and peace to overcome the world through Christ.
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