A good friend far away invites me into a different kind of fast. She says we will say "NO" to hurting ourselves with our words. We will extend grace to others in our lives and...to ourselves. I'm not really sure why this makes me angry, but it does. I am the biggest wrecking ball in my life. Because it's comfortable. Because it's what I do. It is long the only thing that has made me feel like I have some control over my life, and sadly, it is something I'm good at. Right. I'm good at something bad.
Remember my dream of hell? Remember how the enemy of our souls speaks there? I. Should know. I. Was there. His words are the tearing down words. And when we agree with those words...it makes hell on earth for us, now doesn't it? Right?
Jesus is the Word. The Life. He is the Life Giving Words.
I think this is what makes me so angry. I love the Lord, but I live like the devil, and I don't want that pointed out so much. When I take Satan's word over Christ's, I take my linen robe and put it on a pig. Let's dress up that stink there, Miss Piggy. Yuck.
Since my friend laid the challenge down, I have picked it up. It has made me notice how mean I am to myself. Not God's thoughts. How cruel I am to my own heart. Not God's ways. It breaks my heart to think of the Beloved hanging on the tree, nailed down in perfect love...the ultimate price and the only gift worth eternity. I mock Him. Jeer. Say "If You are really the Son of God, save yourself."
Save yourself from me, Lord.
He gazes down, and when our eyes catch I know not what I do. Because in His eyes, I am loved so completely that all the wicked words I have heard and believed and taken as my own to speak again and again, are exposed. As lies. The truth pierces the cruel and breaks its chains of death, and I walk again as a free woman.
Free to Fast from Falsehood. Free from the lies of my enemy. Free from those cruel blows to this soul.
Whom the SON has set free, is free.
Free Indeed,
Bernadette
Ah... I too share the same struggle and often ask... Why am I so good at finding all the wrong in myself and others... and I am a slow learner of Phil 4:8...
ReplyDeleteI love the truthfulness in your post... Blessings to you ...(hopped over from Ann's)
Thank you for your realness here. You are not alone in that talent for speaking death words to your soul. I was born that way, too. Or at least I learned it before I learned to write my own name. It has been a long, long road to find freedom from the Shame that kept me bound for a whole life. And it is only His love that sets us free--free to be who we're meant to be and free to *see* who we are in Him. So glad you are embarking on this challenge to fast from hurting yourself. What a gift--to Him, to yourself, to all who love you. There's a song I've been listening to over and over these last days and I think you might find it encouraging here. It's Shane and Shane's "Liberty": http://youtu.be/MipmxHPbZF8
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