This new kind of peace...

This new peace is kind of weird and takes getting used to…but I love it.

My inherited temperament

I've never been low keyed. I've always wanted to be and I've admired low keyed people all of my life. But I was born a ‘live wire’ always popping, shocking and burning anyone who got too close to me. I would swear, if anyone could attest to it, that I didn't come out crying like a normal baby, but I came out swinging and crying. At birth, I was already agitated at being handled too much.

 Change

For the past several months, I have had an ongoing battle with the inner calm that God was trying to draw from me. I wanted more of it and since I've experienced it incrementally throughout the past few years, I craved it. The problem was, I had no idea that you had to go through hell to get to it.

It seemed that my “island of tranquility” (or the peace that God wanted me to experience on a permanent basis) was situated right on the other side of the most shark infested choppy waters you could imagine. In short, I had to dredge through the heavy weighted nuances of my past once and for all.

The lover of my soul said: “You can swim through this.” Part of me felt like this was an unfolding plan for Him to take me home sooner than expected, so I stood on shore for just a while longer. I was praying for courage. I was praying for another way to go home. I was praying for a more beautiful ending. Finally, when none of those prayers seemed to be answered, I knew that I had to jump in and start swimming and I did.

With all of the finesse of a petrified land lover, I began chopping at the waves. I was making horrible progress and smacking at any perceivable object that was in my path. I was calling for help, yet too afraid to trust it at the same time.  I was in panic mode.

Still, because of how He is and who He is, God honored my effort to cross this storm and just when I was going down for the last time…He reached in and saved me…again.

I am now of the mindset that we are allowed to be saved by grace multiple times until we leave this earth and each time will be as beautiful and as new as the last.

In the midst of one of the worse panic attacks that I've had in months, I heard God’s voice say: “This is a test and I will not let you fail.” Honestly, when He said that, I was failing badly and I didn’t know how to stop myself…but God didn't seem too upset about that.

God being a Daddy

I always loved those Dads on TV who never seemed to get too angry at their kids, no matter what they did. I thought it was amazing how they could sit calmly and rationally while giving discipline and direction. I wondered why more Dads weren't like that, until I started calling God “Abba” which means “Daddy” in Aramaic. When I started relating to God as Abba, my relationship with Him changed dramatically and I noticed that His responses to me were far gentler than I had realized before. The ironic thing was, I waited for His disposition toward me to change into full blown anger and sometimes rejection, but so far, that doesn't seem to be His parenting plan. How I love Abba…

The journey

God’s rescue for me consisted of an intense mouth to heart resuscitation for about four days. On the second day, (which was a Saturday) He told me that I would be okay by day three.

During the course of those days I experienced emotional vomiting like I have never experienced before. Childhood, teenage years, adulthood, relationships, issues with my parents (namely my Dad) my sisters, the church, other Christians, as well as from marriage to motherhood, nothing was off limits.

He promised me that His voice would stand above all the other voices in my life, if I would just focus in on it. Every day, I tried hard to cling to His words and let all other opinions go, which was a huge feat for someone who wanted approval so badly. It was gut wrenching change and I needed it fast, or I wasn’t going to make it.

The other side

By day three, I was fully functional. It was incredible. I had spent three intense days in emotional detox reading three specific scriptures a day (I still do) and receiving literal breath from God to supplement my shallow breathing…and this day, this third day, I emerged victorious with my hand still clutching Abba’s. I am now on the other side experiencing a miraculous emotional healing. Every day I am becoming freer.

The path ahead is filled with life’s uncertainties and the circumstances that surround me have not changed much in the natural, but what makes all the difference in the world, is a healed mind and a fresh perspective. I will live, with my hand in Abba’s, a gentler, more peaceful and loving spirit and that is all I've ever wanted in my whole life.

Faithful God

We say “God is faithful” out of habit at times, but it takes a real breaking of the will to find out how true this really is. Deuteronomy 31:6 says: Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the LORD your God goes with you, He will never leave you nor forsake you. This was Moses encouraging the people of Israel that God was with them in a time when fear and uncertainty could have easily taken over and defeated them. This scripture is no less relevant in our lives today. Fear and discouragement can be a prevailing constant for us, which can stand in the way of overcoming life’s hardest difficulties. But when God Himself promises that He will be with us always and we hold on to that truth for dear life…there is no way that we can fail. We will truly get to the other side…

*I want to note that the components of this rescue have been building up for years and years. All it took was a crises (which God allowed) to bring on the full blown healing. I want to make sure that no one reads this and walks away with the idea that life’s biggest problems can be solved in just a few days or so. The time frame of healing is up to God. We can delay it by the way that we perceive His help however, so be sure to know His voice and fall in love with His heart.  Finally, I want you to know that it doesn't matter what you view a crisis to be or what scale that you weigh it on, if it hurts us, God wants to heal us and He doesn't measure or discard our pain based on a scale of 1 to 10.