Losing more of myself

I have been working on editing photos and blogging about Brussels, but it might still be awhile. I have a couple drafts that I have worked on but just haven't had the time or mental capacity to finish them yet. It is hard sometimes to know what to do with my free time. I can choose to nap, read, watch something, write, go out, practice ukulele, or study French, but I usually end up trying to write or do something that does not require all of my mental concentration. I am pretty brain dead by 1:00 and studying French or practicing my uke get passed up for something less challenging.

It has been frustrating to bring my uke all the way here, but every time I try to practice it feels like beating my head against a brick wall. The progress I have made in learning notes and reading music goes out the window when I am so tired. I think I need to start taking power naps. I need the extra sleep, as I am only getting about six hours every night. I think I am slowly getting used to that, but my brain is definitely not at 100%.

Yesterday was a good and hard day. I said before that I had been struggling with my attitude last week and really having a hard time serving with joy. I was struggling alone all week because I did not want to show weakness and ask for help, or offend Rebecca. Yesterday though, she could tell I was not doing well and we talked about it. She said that it is a miracle for anyone to serve with joy, especially with the endless list of things we have to do around here and when she is stressed or cranky (her words). She said it has to be the Lord that gives me that attitude, because I cannot work it up myself.

I get really impatient with my own sanctification and this week, God has shown me a lot of pride and selfishness in my heart. I want to immediately eradicate it, so I start pushing for God to fix me in my prayers instead of submitting my struggles to Him in faith and peace. But often, my wanting to be rid of these sins is because I want to be perfect and appear righteous. I don't want to have any flaws, so I say to God, "sanctify me!" for my own vanity and esteem, not for the joy of letting him make me more like himself.

My heart is so deceitful, and even in wanting to be good, I have to mistrust it. My heart can only change and I can only grow by the Lord's grace and him moving in my heart by the circumstances he has placed me in and the power of his Word. The same power that raised Christ from the dead and seated him in the highest place above all powers is working in my heart to make me more like Christ (Ephesians 1). That is so encouraging.

I was in a funk for the rest of the afternoon after talking to Rebecca. It was good to get the things that were troubling me out of my system, but I always feel so exposed after having those kinds of conversations. I was also struggling with God, knowing that I have been asking to change and be sanctified, but also am getting so tired of it. I think I can almost feel myself being chipped away, as layer by layer my heart is exposed before the Lord and to those around me and I see all of my weaknesses. I am losing more of myself every day. In the unveiling of my sins, he is boring into my heart and making himself the most important thing. He is taking away all the things I might have confidence in and showing me that only he can fill up those places in my heart. Some part of me wants to grasp onto the things that he is exposing and not let go of them. I don't know if this is making any sense. :/

After Bible study yesterday (we have been going through Ephesians), Rebecca prayed that God would show me the lies that I have believed about God and about myself. And he did that in a major way. We had read Psalm 139 in Bible study, because of some connection to Ephesians 1, and the whole time I felt that I was not accepting his love for me. Maybe I just felt exposed yesterday, but I have had a tendency to push emotion away and become very detached and closed. I know that God loves the world and I know that he loves his children in an even more special way, but I have not believed that he has specifically loved me. I have not believed that I have worth in his eyes. I have not believed that I have any worth or future at all. I read Psalm 139 over and over again and I hope that as I pour through the Word and preach the truth to myself that God will change these things that I have believed. I don't know how to believe these things and I don't know what to do to change my heart, but he does. And I am glad.

I want to have confidence in his love and his delight in me. I want to not only believe greatly in his sovereignty and wisdom and his love for all; I want to believe it with all of my being for myself.

In the middle of sorting through all these things (and I admit my eyes were leaking quite a bit, er, I mean it was raining on my face), I fell asleep, and about ten minutes later, my sister came to wake me up because they needed me downstairs. I was quite cranky about being woken, but I was so glad she did.

We went downstairs to get Rebecca up in her chair so we could have dinner in the garden. Paul had built a fire and we roasted sausages over the fire while they told us stories.

They told us about the house next door, that really I am quite obsessed with (I will have to share what I remember sometime). They told us stories about their travels to the Congo: near death experiences, being under house arrest, getting Malaria (Paul said he has had it 13 times!), planting over 1100 churches, sharing Christ with soldiers that were probably planning to kill them, 16 hour rides through the jungle, and all of this in their first year of marriage. They told us how the Lord brought them together and told us stories about their children when they were young.

Their love for each other was so apparent and it is amazing where the Lord has brought them in over 40 years of marriage.

I am so thankful to be here in "spiritual boot camp" right now and am so thankful to glean from the richness of wisdom and knowledge and faith and grace and peace from these lovely people.

Grace through trial

My mind is bursting with all that I am learning. I feel like a balloon that is about to pop.

I am learning so much practically, all the care taking duties, medicine schedules, trying to pick up some french, and just a lot of little details. But I feel like I am learning so much more spiritually. My spirit was so exhausted yesterday evening and I was so overwhelmed with everything the Father is teaching me. It is definitely all good, but sometimes I just don't know how in the world to take it all in.

I have been struggling the past several days with a bit of spiritual oppression. The first day it was an encompassing sense of sadness, not really about anything in particular, but over everything. The second day it was a sense of accusation and guilt. Yesterday, I was tempted to question God about everything. I am learning so much and growing so much, but I can feel the tempter feeling his way around and trying to find my weak spot, trying to get me to despair over everything. I think he knows he is losing. (These are things that I struggle with a lot of the time, but never in such an overwhelming sense in quite a while. That is why I think it is spiritual warfare. Just in case you were wondering. :)  )

I asked Rebecca to pray about it at bedtime the second day and she told me that those things are extremely common in this area of Europe. She said, "well that is silly to carry it around all this time." :) She prayed boldly and with authority in Jesus name for me and I feel some of the burden lifted. Rebecca also said that I need to strengthen my spiritual armor, so I have been diving into Ephesians 6 and feel like I have been really learning to "pray at all times in the Spirit, with prayer and supplication." Every time I feel the heat of accusation or the whisper in my ear questioning God's goodness, sovereignty, and love; I just shoot it right back up to the Lord and submit it to him.

I'm not going to lie. It is hard and it is exhausting, but it is so good. I have been reading and re-reading Romans 8 and abiding in, "there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." Ah, what relief! What a refuge! I have received the spirit of adoption as his child and I can cry "Abba Father!" I am helped in my weakness and I am interceded for by the Spirit. "If God is for me, who can be against me?" Who can bring any charge against me? "It is God who justifies. Nothing can separate me from the love of Christ.

I am being filled to the brim and running over. The Father is breaking and healing my heart repeatedly here and filling me with his joy and his strength. It is exhausting and mind blowing and shattering; it is amazing and miraculous and joyous that the Father would care to discipline me, to change me and grow me as he is doing.

It is amazing, when you stop complaining and start thanking the Lord for everything, even the seemingly bad things, how much there is to be thankful for and how much of everything I have is a blessing and not a right.

I love this place, I love these people, and I am so thankful for them and how God is using them and this place to change my heart and glorify himself.  Oh, and how much more there is to come. :)


Shane & Shane  

"Embracing Accusation"

"The father of lies
Coming to steal
Kill and destroy
All my hopes of being good enough
I hear him saying cursed are the ones
Who can’t abide
He’s right
Alleluia he’s right!

The devil is preaching
The song of the redeemed
That I am cursed and gone astray
I cannot gain salvation
Embracing accusation

Could the father of lies
Be telling the truth
Of God to me tonight?
If the penalty of sin is death
Then death is mine
I hear him saying cursed are the ones
Who can’t abide
He’s right
Alleluia he’s right!

Oh the devil’s singing over me
An age old song
That I am cursed and gone astray
Singing the first verse so conveniently
He’s forgotten the refrain
Jesus saves!

He redeemed us from the curse of the law."

This Too Shall Pass

My dear aunt shared this with me on my last post and it was so encouraging to me that I decided you share it with you as well.

This To Shall Pass

If I can endure for this minute
Whatever is happening to me,
No matter how heavy my heart is
Or how dark the moment may be-

If I can remain calm and quiet
With all the world crashing about me,
Secure in the knowledge God loves me
When everyone else seems to doubt me-

If I can but keep on believing
What I know in my heart to be true,
That darkness will fade with the morning
And that this will pass away, too-

Then nothing in life can defeat me
For as long as this knowledge remains
I can suffer whatever is happening
For I know God will break all of the chains

That are binding me tight in the darkness
And trying to fill me with fear-
For there is no night without dawning
And I know that my morning is near.

...Helen Steiner Rice