Healing: Become Undone

• // This weekend was one year since I had lost my dad to addiction. I thought there was no more fitting blog to write, than to honor the changes that have been a part of my growth journey as a result. This is a hodge-podge post, but so are our lives, randomly assorted but so intentionally crafted. This last year has been transformative, I pray that your year was also shaping.

• // This year, I had to realize that I never really lost my dad to addiction, that implies somehow, Christ's ability to overcome does not scale the edges of my life. Our "victory" is not always in an expected outcome. A year ago, I thought that deliverance meant recovery, but only my way. In retrospect, I see my dad's healing in an eternity that can only restore freedom to a prison that captured him on earth. We need to have a faith that asks more of our heavenly Father, but also believes that from His name could only come freedom, unity, and restoration.

• // Shame. I will admit that I felt shame. I felt shameful telling my story, revealing to my safe people exactly what was hard in my life. I heard someone say the best thing. I had to keep telling my story until I ran out of shame, until there was no shame left inside of me, because shame cannot stay alive in public. Might I say, shame was a weapon made by the enemy to tell us that we somehow should not have confidence in the life we lead, or that our journey is not important, or even that there is no reclamation allowed to things given by God but twisted through the world. Speak until you run out of shame, we are not made to carry that around.

• // Faith the size of a mustard seed moves mountains. Faith is confidence and confidence means that doubt cannot plant. Whether we carry a lot of confidence or a little confidence, uncertainty cannot coexist. Our words to the Lord are heard. Bring everything to Him. Bring the excitement of a new job and the hurt of losing an animal. Your words are never beside the point to Jesus. Believe that what you say is brought into the kingdom of Heaven.

• // Prioritize family. Take time sitting around the table eating. Call your parents or kids. Text them randomly. Make dates with them. Family is just a blessing. 

• // God is only good. I over-analyze most things, and as I decided on the character of God, not seeing the deliverance that I expected, I kept hitting a wall that could only recognize Jesus as good. I wanted to be angry with God and believe that He did not keep His promises, but my experience was that He continued to bless me with more family, opportunity, and kindness. These moments felt almost like they could not run out. When I understood that only goodness could come from the Father, I discovered that I could not count high enough to note every good thing in my life. 

• // Healing is something that I do not believe we could ever see the end of, in this life. We have to spend our lives becoming undone, because it is our unwinding that makes us more like Him. When we are undone, He can pull us back together in the exact pattern that we need to be. We spend our lives becoming a more perfected creation until our last breath when He molds us into the exact version of ourselves that He always intended.

Claim Your Royalty

• // The knowledge of the century is that adults today face an identity crisis, REGULARLY. Who has not done it? We log onto our Instagram or Facebook and find the wealth of comparison that thrives on these platforms. In the same way that social media can act as a tool to develop and encourage individuals to step into a greater potential, this outlet can easily be misconstrued as a hole filled with doubt, never enough-ness, and self-scrutiny.

• // You feel under-educated, under-qualified, and quite frankly under some serious pressure to finally measure up, ironically. Sometimes, I find myself stalking the very people that make me feel insecure about who I am to fill this absurd, self-satisfying urge to discover how I am not making the mark, just so that I can do the opposite, believing I will become more like them. Here's the problem, nothing about this is truly transformative. The temporary fix that comes from trying to mimic the unique traits of someone else, wears off in the tiredness of keeping up an image, and soon there after, true personality returns. This trend cycles and recycles every time we come face to face again, with the very thing that breeds our insecurity.

• // The beauty of Jesus is that He is the only truly transformative power that exists on this earth. I struggled writing this piece because I found myself in the thick of attempting to claim my identity. Earlier in the year, I spoke about identity at an event and found a new discovery that is told throughout scripture. Your identity is not that you are a good leader or singer, because those are all things that can honestly change as your life unfolds. No identity thief can steal your citizenship in Heaven, and still, no identity thief can steal your Father, the maker of the universe, from you. There is no Instagram post, job loss, disappointment, failure, or changing of careers that can change the core of your being, a child of the one true king; this is your defining characteristic.

• // I found that as I started praying John 3:30 over my life, "He must increase; I must decrease," I have started to begin a journey into loving the life Jesus created for me, while seeking His purpose over where I am supposed to be. In the same breath of speaking this verse over my life, I found that my best self was being accomplished in this season because I started living in exactly what set me apart. I may not be someone who can naturally look for the needs of someone in the room or search out the specific ways that someone may need encouragement, but I have God-given tendencies and gifts. I have found that once we live in the fullness of who God designed us to be, we step into the ministry that God has set before us. As a reminder, Jesus can always develop the things that we are not gifted with, but it does not cheapen the value in our specific skill-set. If you are gifted with confidence, walk in confidence about God's promise when others are not. If you are gifted with encouragement, speak over the ways that other's are living out God's design, even when they may not believe it. Who you are is beautiful, and your royalty in Heaven gives you immeasurably more authority on this Earth in Jesus' name to speak truth, walk in love, and forgive other people. Claim your royalty, abide in your royalty.