Care to join me on an adventure? It started last night and resulted in my Discover Jesus Moment #10. I am attending a course at church that will deal with the shame, fears, and control issues that hide who we really are (plus much more, including spiritual warfare). Many of these issues come from our ancestry and upbringing. If this course had been offered ten years ago, I would have laughed and thought, "what a lot of baloney." But, after the events of the past few years, I know that the ways I have dealt with, or not dealt with, my husband's behavior are directly related to my learned behavior which came from my parents' learned behavior which came from their parents'... I think you get the picture.
Last night, after an overview and explanation of what we would be doing over the next few weeks, we spent some time on forgiveness: forgiving others, asking God's forgiveness, and forgiving myself. We were instructed to sit quietly before God and listen, then list the names the persons we needed to forgive AND what we needed to forgive them for. We were also told to be ready for revelation as we waited on the Lord.
Of course, the first person on my list was my husband. I have told God many times that I forgive my husband, but this is the first time I have really had to think about specifics instead of generalities. "Lord, I forgive my husband for molesting the girls," wasn't going to cut it anymore. I had to go through a process of breaking down a huge event into smaller pieces. It didn't take long to realize that this was going to take a lot longer than the twenty minutes we had last night.
Under my husband's name I wrote, "breaking his granddaughters' trust." This was quickly followed by," lying to me," and "breaking my trust". That is all the further I got because as I wrote down, "making me extremely angry," I realized that my anger is not something I needed to forgive my husband for. My anger, in and of itself, is not a sin, but when I let it continue on and on and on, I have to confess it to God as well as ask his forgiveness.
Since this was getting a little too personal, I decided to add others to my "List of 1". In a matter of seconds, my list contained a total of three names, I now had to determine specifically what I needed to forgive these new people for. In each case, as I started to write down what they had done to me, I realized they had really done nothing at all. My hard feelings and resentments were the results of my judgmental perceptions and my resulting reactions. Ooops. There, staring me in the face, was Discover Jesus Moment #10. I had never thought of myself as being either judgmental or reactionary, but I was. He had just revealed part of me I was neither expecting nor knew the existence of. It wasn't pretty.
In a matter of minutes, my time of forgiving others had turned into a time of asking God's forgiveness. What had started with finger pointing and blame because someone hurt and betrayed me had been turned into a time of introspection and confession, of asking God's forgiveness for the pain I had caused him, of forgiving myself for the additional pain I has caused my already hurting ego. The tables had been turned.
As I debated whether or not to share any of this new adventure which will probably become very personal, I decided that, yes, I should. I have tried, through my blogs, to be as open as possible about my strugglel.. I know I am not the only one in the world who has faced difficulties and has had to trust the Lord in all things, even though it was/is hard at times. I want Christians, as well as non-Christians, to know that they aren't alone in their pain. I want them to know that their doubts, angers, loneliness, and fears are not only real, but also understood by God, and that He wants to walk them through the valley of the shadow of death into light and health. .
That being the case, I feel it is important to invite others along on this new leg of my journey. I will continue being as open as I can. As of today, we now all know I have a judgmental streak in me, I hate to admit it, but it is there and it has to be dealt with. I have a feeling these next weeks will be much more important to my growth than any of the past five years have been.
So, hop on board. Let's discover our true identity in Christ, not who we think we are.
Jan
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