Reading...

I started a project I've been meaning to work on for a while.  When I first started blogging, I wasn't taking pictures.  So I wanted to go back through my writings that I posted on my first blog, Deep Calls, and use photos of my own with my writings.  I'd like to make an album out of it.  Anyways, it means that I've been going through my earlier writings.  I don't know about you, but when I read earlier pieces it's very natural to remember a lot of the things I felt when I wrote them.  Those feelings have been lingering a bit. 
I love my earlier writings.  I still believe that they reflect truth and light and grace.  When I wrote them, I wasn't so sure.  I remember feeling so much fear and shame and confusion about everything that was happening to me. I don't look at myself that way anymore--that is the grace of God.
The truth is, I was confused, because I didn't realize that God could speak to me like He was.  That was hard on so many levels but that wasn't the awful part.  The awful part was that I didn't think I could ever tell anyone because I believed that the world would think I was crazy and the church would think I was demon possessed.  Unfortunately, more often than not, I was right.  The most horrific part of it all was my fear.  I was so afraid to believe God, even though deep down I did anyway, even when I didn't admit it to myself.
As I thought about that time in my life, I felt very sad.  I'm so sad I was afraid to trust God and to trust myself to hear God and to know His voice.  I'm so sad that I believed I couldn't trust the Spirit of God to reveal Himself to me personally.  I'm sad that I believed that I needed someone important to believe it for me first before I could accept it as truth.  I'm sad that shame and guilt and fear had so much power over me in the midst of my confusion.  I'm sad that I allowed people to convince me for so long that it was likely that the only reason that I was experiencing what I was is that there was something wrong with me--something wrong in my heart, in my motives, in my mind, in my desires, or that I was cursed or possessed, or just plain crazy.
I'm sad that it was so much harder to see truth than it should have been. 
I'm sad that I didn't understand that there was something right about what was happening to me.  I think there are probably a lot more people like me out there who are afraid of what's right with them, and terrified of what people might think.  For good reason.  And I'm sad that there are so few people who are really willing to listen.  So few people willing to be changed by what they hear.  I'm sad that it took me so long to rest in my belief.
It makes me sad to remember the pain out of which those writings came.  But I am also aware that if it were not for the pain most of them would never have been written. 
Again I am reminded, the cross is the blessing. 
So since I've been rereading some of the old stuff, I thought maybe you would like to. 
I'll post a few of my favorites over the next few days.
B