Healing from the Past and Hope for the Future from Unlikely Sources, Part IV of IV

As I reflect on the healing that the Lord has brought through the words of others, a few of my friends, and most of all through time with and help from God Himself, I think about the why -- why does the Lord allow us to be hurt and broken by the sins and pain of others?  And after we're broken, why does He fix us?

The short answer is, I don't know.  But as I have asked God this and thought about it and prayed about it, I've come up with a few hypotheses.

The other week, I was thinking and praying about why some of the things I've gone through hurt so badly and why they had happened to me.  God's answer was clear and direct: "I am building compassion in you."  Alrighty then.  Essentially I've come to believe -- at least in my case -- that the Lord used these situations to build empathy in me for others who are hurting.  I believe He wanted me to know that I need to trust Him above people and above organizations -- ultimately, above anything else.  I believe He used the hurtful situations in my past to draw me to the real Jesus -- not the cheap imitations I'd grown up around.

While everyone's situation is different,  I believe that every hurt we experience hurts God too; that He doesn't cause the pain though He does allow it.  And I do believe that He can redeem these hurts and, somehow, work them together for His good.  I don't pretend to understand how this works, but I can see how He's begun doing this in my life.  I am so grateful for it.

I believe God fixes us because He is good, and because He loves us.  Period.  While I've come to believe that these are two of the main reasons I've come to believe that God fixes us, I think He ultimately uses our hurts and the broken pieces of our past to display His glory and to use us for His service.

I know that God has used the deep hurts I've experienced in and because of the church to help others.  I am ready to be used, and my yes is on the table.  I am willing to use these hurts to help others however I can.

Healing from the Past and Hope for the Future from Unlikely Sources, Part III of IV

A second source that the Lord has used to heal me has been people.  Two people in particular come to mind: my friends Ashley and Austin.  They're not at all alike.  Ashley is a strong, assertive mom of two who is about my age.  She is fearless and walks unapologetically in the gifts of the Spirit. She is artsy and a free spirit with an underlying grit and strength.  Austin is a timid, relatively reserved twenty year old guy who is organized and methodical (typical engineer).  I cannot see him hurting a fly (although, flies -- watch out for Ashley...).  He has a gentle spirit with underlying tenacity and stubbornness.

I love them both, and both have been instrumental in my healing process.

Ashley has modeled for me what it means to walk in strength.  She has shown me how to tap into gifts of the Spirit.  She has called helped me to see that things that I thought were broken, bruised, hopeless were actually what the Lord wanted to use as the foundation for big things.  She has spoken things into being, and used her words to speak life to me when I thought I was broken and beyond repair.  She has given me strength and hope.  She was probably the first person I knew who was walking in the gifts of the Spirit who I could take seriously -- who I didn't think was broken beyond repair or a crackpot.  And she is strong and awesome, and to see her listen to the Spirit and yield to the Lord's leading has been great and a huge example to me.

Austin -- 14 years younger than me and a dude -- has probably been one of the biggest parts of my healing with respect to gender roles which is a huge surprise for so many reasons.  He's one of the main reasons why I began listening to strong female teachers like Lisa Bevere and Joyce Meyer.  He's one of the hungriest people I know when it comes to learning about the Lord and how to walk in the gifts of the Spirit.  He hears the voice of God more clearly than anyone I know.  He is a tremendous encouragement to me, and speaks the Lord's truth.  He is stretching me further and further out of my comfort zone as He learns about and begins to walk in the gifts of the Spirit -- and because of how I trust him and how I see the Lord working in Austin's life, I'm willing to learn more about those things and be open to some of the "crazier" things of the Spirit -- speaking in tongues, for example.  If this were forced on me, I would shut down; however, when Austin tells me about what the Lord is doing in his life and shows it to me, I am willing to hear it because he is so gentle.  It is crazy how the Lord uses the gentle and unassuming.  I am so grateful for Austin, and I believe he is going to bring healing to a lot more people than just me.

I am grateful for these two and the Lord has used them in my life.

Healing from the Past and Hope for the Future from Unlikely Sources, Part II of IV

It really hasn't been until the last couple of years that I've been willing to really deal with how I was hurt in and by churches growing up.  It's been a process and, through the Lord's graciousness, He has helped me heal from these wounds with tenderness, compassion and gentleness.

Help has come from some of the places you'd expect -- counseling, time with the Lord Himself and in the Bible, a loving and non-abusive church.  What's surprised me more, though, is some of the unlikely people and sources the Lord has used as part of the healing process.

Today I will talk about an unlikely source the Lord has used in my healing: He has used people prophesying over me.  

Growing up charismatic, Pentecostal churches, I was no stranger to speaking in tongues and prophecy.  As I began healing from many of the wounds I suffered and giving the God thing another try, though, I distanced myself from situations where these spiritual gifts were employed with regularity.  Over a year ago, I felt God's unmistakable leading to spend a weekend at the International House of Prayer.  I was scared.  I was nervous.  I wondered, "What should I do when I'm there?"  And once I was there, I felt like I needed to visit their prophetic ministry.

"Anything but this, Lord.  Please no!"  I cried in my head.

He did not relent.  I needed to do it.  And to my huge surprise, what was prophesied over me was completely on target and incredibly encouraging.

The first person prophesying began.

I feel like the Lord is removing accusation and the lies of the enemy in this season, and He is speaking identity and love over you.  You keep hearing the accusation but at the same time you begin hearing the truth and your heart is torn.  The Lord is fighting for you in this season -- for your heart to be free and to walk in His love and the freedom of acceptance and confidence. 

Another person continued.

The Lord wants to speak identity to you.  He wants to break off every lie and accusation and come in like a mighty force with truth.  You are beautiful.  You're not "less than."  You are not forgotten.  People have taken so much advantage of you, and the Lord wants to restore that.  There is a season of restoration and refreshing coming.  I feel like there's things you've done and people haven't acknowledged you -- but the Lord acknowledges you.  You bring healing to the brokenhearted.  You have so much compassion and mercy.  You don't like to see people hurting or in need and you do whatever you can to help.

I cried and cried as they prophesied over me.  I listened to this prophecy probably (literally) 100 times.  The first 20 or 30 times I listened to it, I cried.  "Could this be true?" I wondered.  Could it really be that I was loving and compassionate and not argumentative and manipulative like I'd been told over and over growing up?  Could it be that I'd grown up being told lies and not the truth about who I was?

As I prayed about it, played the prophecy over and over, continued in counseling, and put one foot in front of the other, the Lord began healing me. He began showing me even more lies I'd grown up believing, and what the truth was.  Little by little, I was gaining strength and healing -- and it all began with a prophecy which was the last place I would have expected it to start.

Healing from the Past and Hope for the Future from Unlikely Sources, Part I of IV

When I think about the spiritual aspect of how I grew up, it's sad and maybe it was the perfect storm for getting hurt.  First off: me -- I was a strong willed child who, despite putting on fronts that would indicate otherwise, was incredibly sensitive and easily hurt.  Second off: churches that were run by insecure, immature leaders who had strong (and I've come to believe not Biblical) ideas about women and their roles.  They were threatened by others -- particularly women -- who were confident and knowledgable.  They proactively worked to cut others down to size, typically before they even posed a threat to others.  Third off: role models who -- through no fault of their own -- were incredibly hurt and were marginalized and wounded by the immature leadership they'd been under in church settings.  This led me to believe that you were just supposed to "take it" when others devalued and disrespected you.  It also led me to believe that operating out of your strengths was threatening to others and, as a result, should be avoided.

I grew up thinking that this was normal.  I grew up thinking it was normal to have someone bring you to church and be so hurt they would cry in the car because they couldn't bear to go in themselves.  I grew up thinking it was normal to be cut down to size if you knew the answers to too many questions, or if you asked questions that adults didn't have answers for.  I grew up thinking boys were "better" than girls.  I grew up thinking it was normal to have to re-accept Jesus into your heart every week because your salvation was never a guaranteed thing.  I grew up thinking it was normal to fall down every time someone prayed for you.  I grew up thinking that a lot of things that I've come to think are downright incorrect, toxic, and abusive were normal and were, at a minimum, Jesus-approved but probably even Jesus-santioned.

And, as I entered adulthood, I wasn't really sure what to do with all of that but I knew for sure that I didn't like it.