It’s been a long time since I put pen to paper to share my thoughts. I have blogged some, but there is just something therapeutic and spiritual that happens for me when I pause to do it. I am not sure why this daily habit has changed for me. A part of me feels like it is because I was disobedient for so long in getting my journals transferred to this blog. I am slowly moving forward in obedience, but I do have a lot of journals. Regardless, I am ready to get back to writing daily and being more intentional with my quiet time.
I will look for those that are lost, bring back those that wander off, bandage those that are hurt, and heal those that are sick; but those that are fat and strong I will destroy, because I am a shepherd who does what is right. Ezekiel 34:16
What a beautiful picture of Jesus Christ. He came for the lost and every single one of us has been lost in our lives. Most likely in the natural but definitely in the spiritual.
From what I have been told, I had been in church since I was at least two. I was eight years old when I realized I was lost. I was baptized shortly after making a public confession of my faith. I spent the next five years having the word of God planted in my life.
And then I wandered off. I knew Jesus as Savior, but I didn’t know Him as the Good Shepherd. I had all of this stuff I knew about Him, but it was head knowledge not heart knowledge. I knew I needed saving; I never questioned the decision I made when I was eight. However, I felt on the outskirts of really needing anything from Him so I could trust Him as my Shepherd.
It is odd looking back and saying that because my dad went to jail when I was in kindergarten or first grade. He lived outside the home for awhile. We went to church as a family, we would meet and drive to church together every service. I sat outside the preacher’s office when my parents went to counseling. In my mind, I knew “we go to God with the problems.” Yet, I don’t think I was taught during those years how to actually do that.
It’s not hard for me to see how I wandered off. My parents were not emotionally available. They stopped going to church; it wasn’t long before I did too. I stopped having that direction in my life when I was in 6th or 7th grade. I still had spiritual leaders who tried to pull me back. Ultimately not having that spiritual leader in my home made the difference. It is easy to wander off when it feels like those closest to you don’t care. I know that it is how I perceived that time frame and the circumstances in my family.
And so I wandered. I went looking for people who would love me. People who would care for me. People who would give me the attention that I had grown accustomed to as a child. I thought the world revolved around me, until it no longer did.
Then the hurt came. My life looked fine on the outside, to those who might pause to look; however, I was on a destructive path. My innocent exterior masked a hurting little girl looking for love in all the wrong ways. I wandered along the edge of the cliff for a while. Eventually I dove in to the deep end and more than once it almost killed me. There was more hurt in store and no one to help me understand there was a different path I could take.
Hurt came from every direction. A lot were external but even more were internal. I was hurting myself even if I couldn’t see it then. I was choosing to let others hurt me as well. At moments, my family would notice; for the most part, no one called my bluff. No one stopped me from self-destruction. More hurt came and the little girl inside just continued to shrink back in pain and then shame.
When my sister, who’s eight years older than I am, got back into church, I was about sixteen. At that point I was a pregnant teenager. My head knew how to take care of a child as the family babysitter; my heart though was suffocated by the hurt and pain. After my daughter was born, my sister got me to go to church with her.
The Sunday school teacher was the one who began to be the hands and feet of Christ. She begin to bandage my hurts. I’m sure it was hard; I was not ready to let go of the things that were hurting me. Sin becomes a place of comfort when the hurt is so deep inside. But she was patient, loving, and caring, just as the shepherd Jesus is with the sheep.
Only God could bring healing to my spiritual sickness. I could be wrong, but I feel like the spiritual knowledge I had was a hindrance in the process. Knowledge kept me from understanding the truth of what I needed. It stood in the way of me reaching out for what would help me heal. How does a saved person get saved again? I still needed more work but no one told me that it was okay to need Him to do more work in my life.
I went through even deeper hurt as I walked through the motions; I still didn’t have the relationship with Christ I needed. I needed the heart connection. Then when my father died just nine months after being diagnosed with cancer; I was believing for his healing. It threw me further from the Good Shepherd than I had been before. I struggled with the idea that my faith wasn’t good enough. I was mad at God.
Honestly, I can’t not tell you when the shift happened. I can’t say when the healing began. My timeline gets fuzzy. My recollection of events just as fuzzy. I can’t tell you of a specific event or time when it happened. I just know that in the course of three years I was divorced, homeless, I lost my dad, I had a baby, and then somewhere it turned.
I started college in the fall, after my father died. By time I graduated with my associates 2 years later, I was getting married again. We moved out of state so I could continue college. I was faithful in my relationship with God. It was only after I moved to college town that I pursued God for myself. I didn’t find a church that had child care during service and sitting there alone with three children, was more that I could handle.
I started doing daily devotions with my children and started having a personal quiet time for the first time in my life. It is when I first started writing what I was learning about when I read the Bible. I connected online with a group of believers, Christian mommies, who would hold me accountable and that I could share my faith with.
Things weren’t always easy from there either. I have learned what it was like to be cared for by the Shepherd and to have Him meet my needs. It was Jesus all along, who saved me when I was lost. He is the one who pursued me when I wandered off. He is the One who sent the teacher to bandage my hurts. He was with me until I healed. There are still things that He tends to in my life. He’s never far away. I recognize His job is not over in my life and it never will be.
Prayer – Lord I admit, I needed this today. I recognize the importance of me taking the time to really pause during my quiet time and process the devotions and scriptures that I am reading. I never stopped seeking You, but I did pause setting aside the time to sit with my thoughts and feelings with You and reflect on what You are trying to speak into my life. Help me to get back into setting aside that time with You daily just as I used too.
Restoring Voice 