Saturday, October 16, 2010

Acceptance - from where it is important

As much as your love and acceptance would thrill me,
my life is not dependent on it.
I know who I am in Christ
and that alone gives me the reason and validation
to get up every morning
and keep moving every day.

One thing that God has been showing me through my Mt. Moriah experience is the fact that HE is all that I need. Everyone and everything else in my life is just 'the icing on the cake' so to speak.

Just as Abraham had to be willing to give up the very thing that he had waited so long for, and felt was a blessing from God - so must I be willing to completely trust God to know what is best for me even if that means removing people and things from my life. I am amazed how my view, in the last 6 months, has changed of what is important.

Many of you know that the relationship between my mother and I has never been really solid - and usually is at best at least minorly strained. Well it came to a head again 3 weeks ago today, and as I look back in retrospect, yes it hurts, but it hasn't devastated me, as it would have in the past. I love my mom, I know that life hasn't been easy for her, but I am no longer willing to be "the only hell that she ever raised" as she told me many years ago. I can't change her life, or the decisions that she chooses to make in the way that she treats her children. I am not willing to allow her to blame me for all the problems in her life, or my siblings life, and if that means that I have to step away I am reluctantly willing to do that. As she ended one of our 3 conversations on the 25th of September, she said "Come get your things, have a nice life, good-bye." If I would have heard that from her 6 months ago, my heart would have been crushed. Did it hurt, yes, it hurt like hell, but I wasn't then/ and am not now willing to allow the hurt, and bitterness, that was spilling from her, to change and/or define who I am.

I am a child of God. Am I perfect? absolutely not - but I know that I am forgiven - and God has cast my sins as far as the East is from the West. He doesn't throw them in my face, every time He gets frustrated with me and ultimately He is who I have to please. He puts all of His children on a level playing field and never uses one to judge another by. He is teaching me, that He finds great value in me - I am His treasure. And I am excited to say that it has been a long time since I have seen anything good when I look in the mirror of my soul - but now through this experience, I can see so much clearer now at who I am in Christ - and that is good enough for me. I am enjoying His refining process in my life - even though the pain is great at times.
I am learning that it isn't in people, things, or "stuff" that my worth and value is defined - it is simply in who I am.

I am so excited to see what He is continuing to show me, and how my trip to the Holy Lands plays into all of this. I am going to walk where Jesus walked, sit by the Sea of Galilee and hear His voice say "come follow me", and I am going to be able to honestly say 'Yes Lord, I am willing to do whatever it is that You are calling me to do', with nothing holding me back. And for that - this Saturday morning brings me a hope and excitement that I haven't felt in a long time.

Big hugs to you my friends. Know that I love you, but God loves you more than I ever will be able to.


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