Finally done hiding.

The moments when the hiding is over and you feel free...

...are also the moments when you feel the most vulnerable and unstable.

When all your life you've hid to feel safe, and you've never been open with anyone including yourself- no, especially yourself... openness terrifies.

I have more fear to cast out. And more people to be open with.
I have quite a lot of striving to cease if I'm ever to be still.
I have people to love on and serve; feet to wash.
I have thanks to give to God, over and over. 
I have joy...in my hand. I grasp it firmly. 
I have peace to attain and compassion to produce;
actions to be spurred into by it.
I have the Word of God Himself to keep me on track,
and the promise that he will never let me go.

Hell can hit me with all it's got, but through Christ I will overcome this week.

Rose-coloured glasses.

I am looking at the world through rose-coloured glasses
stained with the precious blood of Christ
His love for us overwhelms, it surpasses
His love overcame, it more than sufficed.

What joy I grasp, what hope is induced
seeing the world through this harsh, gory hue
how clearly I see, what gladness produced
when perceiving the Cross, I acquire this worldview.

Delusional? No. Unrealistic? Never.
Your steadfast love will never be severed.
I have cause for peace; I have cause to rejoice
but in these moments I find I have no voice

For looking through blood, seeing Your pain
remembering that only through Christ do I gain
looking at the forgiveness that grace attains
staring bewildered at loosed, destroyed chains
my speechless heart emits a joyous refrain:
“Worthy, Worthy is the Lamb who was slain.”

Naomi....

Perfected in love.

I hide; I wear a mask.
There is a reservoir of feeling that I never access. I’ve opened it recently, now everything is pouring out and overwhelming me. I want to be open with people, my family and friends. So I have to begin to be open with myself to begin this process. I see so much that I need to fight and rid myself of. Emotions that I’ve hidden for years, years- all pouring out. The Well of feeling...I don’t think I’ve just opened it. Maybe I’ve fallen in. I’ve fallen into a pit of fear and I’m thrashing wildly while I drown. I fear fear. It whispers, “Remember me?”

Yes. I remember it all too well. All of my fears. They suffocate. And because I hid them, put them into the deepest corners of my heart I expected them to be gone.

They’ve only strengthened and grown while I wasn’t looking. A hidden disease. Covered wounds I dressed hurriedly and then came back to find infected. I am infected- with fear that slaughters joy and seizes me; takes me over and paralyzes. Panic attacks- the latest manifestation of my fear.

Why do I fear?

And more importantly- why do I hide? Why do I take my emotions by the throat and hide them; deny their existence? All of those years- not crying or expressing myself. Holding back and never showing anyone. Slapping myself in the face until I stopped crying. I didn’t want to be weak. But now... I feel so lost. Does anyone truly know who I am? If they did....would they run? I am an oyster, closed so tightly you need a knife to open me. There is no pearl waiting on the inside, though. Just runny revolting mucus and aching muscle that feels so keenly.

I struggle with fear and depression.You fight depression with thanksgiving, Eucharisteo.
And you fight fear with....love. Because perfect love casts out fear. {1 John 4:18}
Maybe... Eucharisteo  joy and love work together. Whenever one gives thanks, isn’t it to the Creator, to the Giver? Every time you give thanks it is for a gift, for a blessing- an expression of his love. When you give thanks for His blessings and grace-gifts, you are filled with joy because you are looking, you are being still. You have ceased striving and the Almighty has satisfied you and you are filled with Him. And if God is love... and you are filled with God... then you are filled with love. And in turn, your fear is cast out. You are perfected in love. Because fear has no chance against the love that our Creator has for us. Fear has never stood a chance against love, and the fear in my veins doesn’t stand a chance against love- God’s love.
How do I fill myself with it so that my fear will flee?

How do you fill yourself with love?

I need to know; I need to fill myself with it.
That is what I am going to teach myself- to love. To be full of God’s love and be full of love for God. To breathe in and out, love. Showing that love to others and expressing it- expressing things and being open and unafraid, full of shameless love and void of the fear that prompts me to smother emotion. My fear will flee and there will be love coursing through these veins instead.

Thank you, Abba, for showing us the beau ideal of love- for surrounding us with it.  We breathe it and don’t even realize.
Thank you, thank you.

Forgiveness.

Forgiveness- the hardest task
what bitterness behind this mask
holding onto poisoned thoughts
my heart bound by barbed-wire knots

We always assume that we are above someone
when we give grace, forgiveness allot
but letting go never means deciding to be the better man
because, put quite simply- you’re certainly not.

Humble yourself, examine yourself
inconvenience yourself, see yourself
see the same dirt and blood on your own hands and face
and accept that you are under the same sovereign grace.

You will never experience freedom and healing
if you are above the washing; the kneeling.
It is never comfortable; such radical compassion-
it’s a painful, humiliating, deliberate action.

But when you do break free, when you do kneel,
you are helping yourself as you wash and you heal.
When you break free from your pride, the lie
the poison leaks in the blink of an eye.

The grace is spread, Christ’s majesty revealed
your wounds can’t compare to his
and thus you are healed.