Have you ever been in a place of utter brokenness? That place where your heart just aches and turns in your chest and you can't breathe. That place where your just trying to save yourself from going over the edge of no return because you think once you cross that line of letting go the tears won't stop. They will just keep flowing out like blood out of an open wound that can't be sealed shut. So you think how do I avoid this nasty entanglement? If your like me you push it back, you suppress, you occupy you mind with other things. The last thing you do is let your mind go there, whatever there may be.
All this that I've just described, you see, I've been there and on some days in fact it's usually a battle with myself to not let myself bottle things up and bury them deep within myself. This hindrance can go for things big or small but the more they are bottled downed..you guessed it.. the bigger they become.
I have dealt with this issue since I can remember, it's always been a huge struggle of mine to surface things to the top and to be able to speak about them.I tend to let things being to boil till I can't control them anymore then they boil over like a pot of water on the stove that you forgot about. In fact, that's exactly what I do! I push things down and forget about them (or try) and then they boil over. It's a terrible thing to do, if you've never done it don't start now. (your not missing out on anything!) It takes you on constant emotional roller coaster rides and on top of that, if you follow society it makes things even harder. Society says your suppose to fight hard and stand strong, always. As a women your suppose to fight the urge to be emotional so that you can prove your strength and stand tall in this dog eat dog world. As a man, you can't let your emotions get the upper hand on you or else your looked down upon and looked at like you don't have strength like a man is suppose to. All together this world tells us we are suppose to deal with things ourselves, figure our life out, pull ourselves up by our boot straps and continue going. I use to agree with all of this. I use to think I was so strong that no matter what I came I across I was going to over come it by my own strength. I wanted help from no one. Especially being a women, there was no way I was going to let my self ever look weak and especially not in front of men. My pride ran me and at times it still does it's a constant battle but there's this thing that was revealed to me called grace. Grace is a gift from God. Grace is what God gave to all human kind and what those who follow HIM experience. Through Jesus Christ dying on the cross we are able to have this beautiful gift. A gift that provides you strength, wisdom, mercy, and love. All of these are found in Jesus Christ, not in ourselves. Surrendering my life to HIM was the greatest thing I ever did. All that brokenness I discussed above; that drove me to Christ and what I found in HIM was forgiveness and freedom. Forgiveness for myself form the hard things I put myself through, forgiveness for those who hurt me and freedom from it all. Freedom is the best part because no longer I am weighted down by all that heartache, no longer do I have to carry all that junk and unnecessary baggage. Instead I am free and I am free because I agreed with Jesus to hand it ALL over to HIM. I agreed with Jesus that I was only hurting myself by holding on and not processing through things. I opened my heart up to Jesus and He did some major renovating and landscaping by uprooting all the bad things and throwing out all the heavy and not needed luggage. That first step is the hardest thing to do, I know. Opening up your heart to let everything flow freely form it is quite scary when you know you have a lot of locked away feeling in there. But Jesus says this in 2 Corinthians 12:9: " For MY grace is sufficient for you, for MY strength is made perfect in weakness.." This grace given from God has been my saving grace through everything. From experience I can say that God doesn't expose our hurt to have it be a never ending water fall of tears but actually quite the opposite. Tears still may come but there is an end. He brings freedom and healing, Joy over takes sorrow, and happiness over comes pain and fear. It's theses beautiful things that I have come to find when I have allowed myself to unleash the toxic waste I have kept inside to HIM. HE is my Jehovah Rophi- God who Heals and my Jehovah Shalom Prince or Lord of Peace.
Just as 2 Corinthians 12:9 says HIS strength is made perfect in our weakness. Meaning we don't have to fear being weak because that's when our God's strength is best in us and when HE does HIS best work. Remember above when we were talking about society and how weakness is bad? Well it's actually a good thing! The rest of that verse Paul says this "Therefore, most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities that the power of Christ may rest upon me." and the next verse " Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distress, for Christ's sake. For when I am weak, than I am strong." God is a father of love and compassion. He has such a longing to see HIS children loved and happy that HE finds great joy in lifting us up in our weakness and hard times. Not only is the bible a written testimony of this great love but in my own life of experiencing Christ in my most heart broken moments, it was in those moments, where I truly got to feel the love of God as HE enveloped me with HIS love,strength and power. It was in those moments when HE was my Jehovah Shalom my Lord or Prince of peace. In that moment when I thought I had reached the end of all self control and when I thought I was going to keep barreling down this hill with no end in sight , That's when MY Prince of Peace came. What He brought was comfort, what He brought was an end to tears. But that's not all, He didn't just take things away He gave me things as well. HE gave me peace, comfort, joy, happiness, and HIS strength to carry on.
See I always thought I was strong, as I said before. I always thought I could carry myself through anything but the truth is I can't. I can fake it to others and I can fake it to myself but reality is that's not how humans were built to live. We are built to surrender, we are built to surrender it all. Which I know is completely against the world and leaves us completely vulnerable. But that also gives us freedom, God didn't build of this way to suppress us God built us this way because HE loves us. Think about it if we are called to surrender all and follow Jesus what heavy burdens are we carrying? NONE, Jesus is carrying them all for us. The cross, HIS crucifixion and resurrection, isn't just a symbol of HIS undying love for us but is also a symbol and proof of HIS almighty power. That power is one that lives today and is still working for us. It's the power that I surrender to. It's the power that is there not just to carry all my burdens but all yours as well. looking for a job? surrender it to Jesus instead ask HIM to guide you. struggling financially, good news God is provider, surrender to HIM and HE will provide. Being held down by pain, betrayal, self inflicted hurt? God wants to take care of you, HE wants to heal you, but you have to let HIM in. We were meant to carry and worry about nothing and if you truly think about that what a blessing that is! Jesus wants to carry all of our burdens, all of our hurt, all of our worries all we have to do is surrender it to HIM. That can be the hardest step but I promise you once you take it you won't regret it.
Jesus is the complete opposite of the world, HE'S not going to push you down HE'S going to lift you up, wipe away your tears and give you strength, HIS strength. Which I don't know about you but since HE has the power to resurrect I know I sure want that well over my own "strength". We need to stop measuring up ourselves to society and start measuring up ourselves to Christ. There we will see that all the glory be given to HIM because HE is all powerful and glorious but at the same time HE is meek and humble. He came to die for our sins, HE was all God but fully man meaning He had all HIS strength and power but yet HE came as man to feel as we feel. Therefore, HE knows pain, and HE knows hurt, and yet HE still wants to carry all of ours for us.What a glorious thing and all we have to do is surrender. Surrendering can be a constant battle but it's one I would rather do then to try and carry my own burdens. That's a whole lot harder.
Maybe your struggling today with pain and reading this struck a cord. I know exactly how you feel and it sucks. But I'm here to tell you there is another way and maybe you know that but you just haven't been able to let go and surrender, today can be that day, now can be that time. Don't let yourself or satan build up those walls to keep you held down any longer instead let's humbly bow down together and surrender to Jesus.
"Lord, we come to you today broken, we come to you in pieces. Some of us have been carrying things for a very long time but no matter how long we have been carrying them, Lord we know that you can set us free and today, right now, we are going to declare that. Lord we confess that we are weak, Lord we confess that we have been trying to do things ourselves but Lord we have failed. So Lord we come before you now in complete humility and awe of your almighty power. We sit at your feet knowing you love us and were just waiting for us to surrender. We sit at your feet of mercy and thank you for being so loving, caring, and uplifting. We sit at your feet asking for forgiveness. We ask for forgiveness for ourselves as we built up our own walls against you and your healing, we built up walls against your love and kindness entering our hearts. Lord, we also ask forgiveness for putting ourselves on the throne and thinking that we could do all, all be ourselves. Lord , we confess this all to you and we confess that we are hurt and ready to be healed. Lord in this moment we declare that we are surrendering all to you! We declare that we no longer want to hold onto any of our baggage! We declare that it is no longer going to hold us back but that we are going to open our hearts up to you and let you do some deep cleaning and healing! We thank you for the cross, we thank you for your blood washing us cleaning each and every day, Lord. We thank you for being our King and Savior and today we pray that you give us the strength to continue to keep out hearts open to you and allow you to take root in every room in there; in every part of our lives may we surrender to you. We thank you for you love and kindness and all this we pray in your mighty and victorious name, Amen!"
I hope that you got some healing from this. Remember I am right there with you in this constant battle but keep surrendering, continue to be humble and I pray the love of Christ continues to flow through you and consume you.
In HIM,
Courtney
courtney.huebert@cru.org
Destino Intern
destinomovement.com
give.cru.org/0741519
