God was really preparing me the two weeks prior to receive everything that He had in store for me this last week, it was amazing. Ordinarily I would have been closed off to most of the things that we were hearing, not because I wouldn't have thought that Jeff's words had weight, but rather I would have ordinarily discarded everything that He was teaching as something that I already knew and therefore didn't need to really absorb again. However, God had something else in mind for me and He was just so incredible to humble me and open me up wide to receive what He had for me. Day one of the lessons, session one I was already crying like a baby; I'm not even going to hide that because it was awesome, and liberating. That session we talked about different bricks we lay down in our hearts to block out God from really reaching into the depths of our hearts and healing us and having intimate relationship with Him. In those couple hours God helped me to be honest with myself and with everyone else in the room and I realized how much junk was in between myself and God. That session the room was full of sniffles; it was a little bit comical to be honest, but soo good!
We continued through the week learning about God's love. Jeff told us story after story about the sacrifices that fathers on this earth have made for their kids and how that reflects what God has done for us, only to the nth degree. With each story a realization of how much God truly loves not just everyone else, but me as well was driven into the center of my heart. With each story I desired more and more an intimate relationship with this Father who sacrificed so much just to have relationship with me, but who I was denying that right to because of my own insecurities. With each story my heart was opened up more and more, being prepared to have heart surgery done on it by the Great Physician. Finally on the last day of our teaching, Thursday, I was ready and God began His surgery on my heart.
We didn't do class really on Thursday morning, but we had ministry time with God. About six to eight of us at a time would describe the hurts in our heart that had been weighing us down for so many years of our lives. I was so anxious and ready to be rid of the weights that I made sure I was first to bare my soul. It's incredible to me the defenses that the human mind has; these defenses, more often than not, only cause further damage because it doesn't heal the wound, it just puts it in a steel cage so that it's covered up from consciously hurting us. Though the great hurt itself can't get out, the smaller hurts that come along later can get in and they add to the foundation that's already there. Eventually the steel cage won't be able to hold it any longer and everything will burst out and cause us to become a completely different person: a direct product of the hurt, as opposed to a product of trying to cover the hurts. Thank God, because before that could happen to me He himself helped me open the cage so that He could reach in and take care of everything that was in there.
I can hardly describe what I feel like right now. At this very moment I'm not incredibly emotional; I'm not particularly energetic or peppy or happy. However, somewhere inside me that I can't point at I feel absolutely free, and with that freedom there is a gratefulness towards God and an overflowing of joy and love and compassion for everyone else out there, particularly those who don't have an understanding of how incredibly much God loves them, and how broken His heart is because He doesn't have a relationship with them. It blows me away to think that when God made us He made Himself very vulnerable in a sense. Our Father loves us so much that when we hurt He hurts more than we could possibly fathom, and when we are close to Him it brings Him more joy than we could possibly fathom.
Needless to say it has been a very good week. I'm so excited to just get know God more and more every day, to walk with Him and talk with Him and ask for His opinion and take His advice, I'm excited to trust Him with everything and to give Him everything and to make Him my everything. I've never felt so content in my life. I really hope that the synopsis of this last week has really blessed some of you reading this, and revealed something about our Daddy to some of you as well. I just challenge anybody reading this to be really honest with yourself and with God. Jesus' blood can only cover what has been uncovered. Many truths are spoken in jest; stop telling yourself and others that you're just kidding around when you speak death over yourself and realize that you really want someone to actually hear your heart behind those statements and to have compassion. God knows our hearts, and He cries over our hurts. I could never be satisfied with the compassion of others, I had to realize how much compassion God has for me when I'm hurting, only then was I satisfied. What's the foundation of hurt in your heart that satan has been building on? Admit the hurt and let God take care of it for a change.
On a different note, here are some random but beautiful pictures from the base and a ranch I went to Saturday. I'm kind of addicted to the sunrises and sunsets here so there's going to be a lot of those pictures .
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