To Banquet with Angels

The early church fathers weren't afraid to tell it like it is. Unlike today, they had no problem with the term "devil (s)".  I love how forthright St. Athanasius was:

Devils take great delight in fullness, and drunkenness and bodily comfort - They delight in excess of every kind.  When we are "fat" with vice this prepares quite a "spread" for the evil spirits. They feast on vices. This includes "spiritual excess" because it is often pride based.

Fasting possesses great power and it works glorious things - Fasting and prayer can free us from oppression and demonic harassment far more quickly than prayer alone can. It also sets our hearts on the things above.

The end result:
To fast is to banquet with angels  


Devils take great delight in fullness, and drunkenness and bodily comfort. Fasting possesses great power and it works glorious things. To fast is to banquet with angels.
                                                                       St. Athanasius



                                               

Stunned by the News

Pope Benedict XVI is stepping down from the papal office. To say I was shocked is a bit of an understatement. Here is the full text of his declaration:

Dear Brothers,
I have convoked you to this Consistory, not only for the three canonizations, but also to communicate to you a decision of great importance for the life of the Church. After having repeatedly examined my conscience before God, I have come to the certainty that my strengths, due to an advanced age, are no longer suited to an adequate exercise of the Petrine ministry. I am well aware that this ministry, due to its essential spiritual nature, must be carried out not only with words and deeds, but no less with prayer and suffering. However, in today’s world, subject to so many rapid changes and shaken by questions of deep relevance for the life of faith, in order to govern the barque of Saint Peter and proclaim the Gospel, both strength of mind and body are necessary, strength which in the last few months, has deteriorated in me to the extent that I have had to recognize my incapacity to adequately fulfill the ministry entrusted to me. For this reason, and well aware of the seriousness of this act, with full freedom I declare that I renounce the ministry of Bishop of Rome, Successor of Saint Peter, entrusted to me by the Cardinals on 19 April 2005, in such a way, that as from 28 February 2013, at 20:00 hours, the See of Rome, the See of Saint Peter, will be vacant and a Conclave to elect the new Supreme Pontiff will have to be convoked by those whose competence it is.
Dear Brothers, I thank you most sincerely for all the love and work with which you have supported me in my ministry and I ask pardon for all my defects. And now, let us entrust the Holy Church to the care of Our Supreme Pastor, Our Lord Jesus Christ, and implore his holy Mother Mary, so that she may assist the Cardinal Fathers with her maternal solicitude, in electing a new Supreme Pontiff. With regard to myself, I wish to also devotedly serve the Holy Church of God in the future through a life dedicated to prayer.
From the Vatican, 10 February 2013

BENEDICTUS PP XVI

Source: Vatican Radio

Check this out!

So, I woke up this morning to 2 feet of snow. Not having anything pressing to do (other than hours and hours of shoveling) I decided to visit a few of my favorite blogs and this is what I found:
Me? I'm Elvis' Wife.

 I almost choked on my coffee while reading it!

Thanks for the laugh, Sue!!

The Problem with Passivity

Photo source: Wikimedia Commons

One of the spiritual difficulties I've struggled with over the years and still battle against is passivity. The problem with passivity is that it can look so good on the surface but it can keep you from taking direct action to solve a problem. This excessive passivity sometimes excuses itself under the guise of "surrendering things to God". It talks about problems but struggles when it's time to take action because it is apathetic and doesn't really want to disturb itself or because it is overwhelmed and doesn't know where to start.

So, what exactly is passivity? And why is it such a negative thing at times? 

The Free Dictionary defines passivity as:
The condition or quality of being passive; inactivity, quiescence, or submissiveness. Some of its synonyms are: spiritlessness, numbness, apathy, indifference.

 Submissiveness doesn't sound too bad, right?

Well, it all depends on who or what you are submitting yourself to. We can sometimes fool ourselves into thinking that we are "turning the other cheek" when the truth may be that we don't want to get ourselves involved in a difficult situation. Satan happens to love inertia. He can create a little hell for families or a nation just by convincing people that passivity is a good thing through things like:

"It's best not to disturb the waters because it may start a fight."
                                   and
"If I just leave the situation alone it will resolve itself."
                                    or
"One person can't make a difference anyway. What's the point in trying?"


And sometimes the "situation" resolves itself right into chaos simply because no one is willing to do something about it.

Apathy and sloth often clothe themselves as passivity. After all, passivity sounds better, right? It excuses its own behavior. "I'm just a passive person by nature" sounds so much holier than "I'm just an apathetic person by nature".  We all need periods of prayer, rest, and quiet but this is to prepare us for activity not for more passivity. A trap I've fallen into many times is excusing my lack of action by saying, "Well I prayed about it, didn't I?" The problem being is that the prayer needed to be followed by an action. At times I have taken "let go and let God" a bit too far and sinned by omission instead of commission.

God is active, not passive. Grace is active. It's important that we have an active, living faith not a dead faith that slaps everything into God's hands and goes its own way. Passivity is rarely surrender
to God, passivity is usually a surrender to self. When you look at the lives of the great saints you will see surrender to the will of God but very rarely an excessive passivity. Saints accomplished a lot. And some of them didn't even have to go very far to do this!

Here is an example of the difference between surrender to God and apathy/passivity:

I (Mother Teresa) had the most extraordinary experience once in Bombay. There was a big conference about hunger. I was supposed to go to that meeting and I lost the way. Suddenly I came to that place, and right in front of the door to where hundreds of people were talking about food and hunger, I found a dying man.

I took him out and took him home.

He died there.

He died of hunger.

And the people inside were talking about how in 15 years we will have so much food, so much this, so much that, and that man died.

See the difference?

                                 (Words to Love By - Mother Teresa)

The people at the conference thought they were helping to solve world hunger by their speaking (or praying) about it when action was what was needed in this man's case.

On the opposite end of the spectrum are those who believe they can do it all, take on too much, and fizzle out within a few days. I've done this too and I believe that God allows us to fail in our endeavors sometimes because we are working from a place of pride.

If we do see these traits in ourselves what can we do about it?

We can pray AND act, but with prudence and love. It's all about balance. Mother Teresa in Words to Love By explains it like this:

I never look at the masses as my responsibility. I look at the individual. I can only love one person at a time. I can feed only one person at a time.

Just one, one, one...

She goes on to say that this is what we are to do also. Begin with one. We can apply her words to other areas, it doesn't have to be feeding the hungry.

I like Mother's way because she understands that each person is special. They are not nameless faces but individuals who deserve her undivided attention. By looking at others and seeing who they are she brought healing to both their bodies AND souls. She treated both the hunger for love and the physical hunger.

May God kindle within us an active, living faith this Lent. A faith with a fire so bright that it
 kindles the same flame in the hearts of others around us. One by one by one...


You go to pray: to become a bonfire, a living flame, giving heart and light. 
                                                     St Josemaria Escriva

One Plus God

We look around the world today and think how crazy the world seems. It can be overwhelming to  realize what we are up against these days:

 "What's the point? What difference can just one person make anyway?"

Have you ever heard these words spoken to you? Or spoken them yourself perhaps?

I have heard them too many times to count over the years and I've even heard them come out of my own mouth now and then.

The problem with this type of mindset is that it sets us up to lose before we've even begun. Imagine if the saints thought like this? All we need to do is look at what Mother Teresa did during the span of her lifetime and we can see that she did not allow herself to fall prey to this kind of thinking. One person can make a huge difference if God is in the equation. Think of what each of these people accomplished during their lifetimes:

Moses + God = the liberation of an enslaved people

Mother Mary + God = the salvation of the entire human race

 Peter + God = the birth of the Church

We cannot say, "Yeah, but they were saints!" Moses was not a saint - he killed a man. St. Peter 

was simply a fisherman - a fisherman who denied Christ three times.

I love this example:  Therese + God = Doctor of the Church...with millions following her "little way" and she accomplished all this without ever leaving the convent or its grounds. (How's that for amazing?)

So never ask yourself what you can do.

Ask yourself what you + God can do.

Have You Met Mishka?

Michaela and I LOVE Mishka! She is the most verbal husky I have ever run across and her
loud "gabbing" always cracks us up!

Those Fiery Darts

In my last post I spoke about the "meeking" process that we all undergo at some point or another. It's important to note that these fiery darts are aimed at the ego, not the true self. In my posts The Finger of God  and A Firm Foundation for Healing  I wrote about the need for healing of your innermost being, the shucking of negative labels off your back, because these false labels interfere with your mission in life. We need to be able to differentiate between the blows of satan aimed at destroying our true self and the fiery darts allowed by God that are helpful to us in recognizing certain patterns of sin in our lives.

Sometimes, when we are resistant to seeing these sin patterns and the flaws within ourselves God will speak through others. This is so that we'll become aware of the area that God would like us to focus on - an area that He is usually working on also. For example: if a number of friends or family members suggest that your thinking process may be a stumbling block in your life...then it's a very good possibility that this may very well be the case. Or if you have a tendency to overreact and everyone around you seems to point this out quite often then, hey, it's likely they just might be onto something.

Over the years, I've noticed that a big issue of mine seems to be with my thought life. After working on it for many years I thought I was doing a very good job in this area but I was overlooking the more subtle poisonous thoughts that can creep into our minds and go unnoticed by us if we don't stay alert. I bought into the lie that we can't control our thoughts. We may not be able to choose exactly what thoughts go (because we also have to deal with the spiritual realm in this area) into our minds but we can certainly have a choice in deciding what we want to dwell on. We can also be aware of just what we are feeding our minds. The more trash you put in there... the more trash is likely to come out. If you feed it poison, that poison is going to seep out somewhere, some way.

An issue I struggle with is passivity. God has called me on this a number of times, as have others. Some folks are under-reactors not over-reactors. Both these extremes can be problematic but, whereas overreacting is obvious, the effects of underreacting are much more insidious. The problem with passivity is that it can look so good on the surface but it can keep you from taking direct action to solve a problem. To my own mind I considered it "surrendering things to God". Sad, yes. Truth was, I often felt overwhelmed and refused to take the steps necessary to fix a problem. It's something I still battle with. And it bears no resemblance to true surrender. God is an active God.

And I probably never would have noticed if God didn't use many (many, many...lol) others to point this out over the years. So, though I was not grateful for the correction at first, in the long run it has been very helpful. At least now, I am aware of it and can take measures when I notice it coming into play. I think I've written about this before here (and, my apologies, you'll no doubt see more about this subject because I often see this trait at work in our world and its fruit can be devastating...both to individuals and nations).

Human nature has a tendency to resist correction, especially if it's worded badly. It's much better when it comes from a trusted friend or family member but this isn't always the case. At times it comes from the least expected place, like out of the mouth of your friend's child or maybe a co-worker. The point is: when we hear the same thing over and over it may be a good idea to pay attention to what others are saying.

Without question, there are also times when we should not listen to what others are saying. When an accusation is leveled at the very being of a person we should toss it right out. We need to be able to discern the difference between the two. Telling someone that they are stupid or unlovable attacks the being of the person not the actions of the person.

One tears down a person while the other is aimed at a behavior - this makes it easier to discern between the two.

(You can see the  "meeking" process at work in the combox of blogs at times. Every time I see this at work I can't figure out why the other person isn't "getting" it, especially when it's obvious... and then I remember how long it takes me to "get" it, even when it's obvious to others, and I understand :-)

Meeking

St. George: Wikimedia Commons

An old English word used for training a horse is "meeking". I wasn't aware of the word meeking at all until a few years back when, much to my humiliation (and note the word humiliation), a women gifted with discerning the spiritual gifts of others informed me (yes, she actually got a word of knowledge about it) that God was "meeking" me. Lacking meekness, my mind immediately pushed aside the words she had spoken about my spiritual gifts and zoned right in on the "meeking"...lol. Let's just say my face felt hot and flushed and I couldn't wait to get out of there.

But she was right. The next three years were the hardest of my spiritual life as this meeking process
began and continues to this day. Imagine if you can constant correction by both God...and others. Many of you probably CAN imagine it because you've been through it yourselves. The saints warn us about this stuff and we assume they are exaggerating.

Oh yes...God uses others to correct us. It loses its sting after a while but I'm not going to lie and say it's an easy process. It helps to know that this is a stage of the spiritual life that very few are exempt from.

If you fight the correction...it gets worse. I kid you not. If you don't accept the correction humbly it's as if all hell breaks loose and everybody and their brother begins noticing every little (okay...big)
fault and peculiarity you have.

What I didn't understand then was that meeking was a good thing. Meeking isn't meant to strip the power from a horse but rather to harness that power so it can be used in a more purposeful manner. Meeking, as ugly as it sounds, leaves a person with a pliable and teachable spirit and this is something that we want. Without this teachable spirit it's very difficult to make much spiritual progress.

I guess I should have thanked God for the advance warning that He was doing this but I would have been lying through my teeth if I had said I was grateful for it back then. Even today the thank you is forced through slightly gritted teeth.

A great help to me was Archbishop Fenelon's book Let Go. Even the chapter titles spoke to me:

"Sensitivity to Reproof is the Surest Sign We Needed it."

Ouch.

Or how about this:

"Your ego can neither be convinced nor forced into submission by any other means; it is always finding secret lines of supply from your own courage; it is always discovering impenetrable retreats in your own cleverness."

I felt bad for the poor guy just thinking of what he must have gone through to get such a deep understanding of our innate stubbornness.

Oh, and a word to the wise:

Never automatically agree with everyone just to get this spiritual stage over with.

Trust me on this one...it doesn't work.

What do you mean how do I know?

(grin)

Food for Thought - Bullying

My thanks to CSD elementary school for this helpful checklist. I didn't realize it would come in so handy navigating the internet too.

“Warning Signs of a Bully” Checklist

____  1.  Enjoys feeling powerful and in control

____  2.  Seeks to dominate and/or manipulate peers

____  3.  May be popular with other students, who envy his or her power

____  4.  Is physically larger and stronger than his or her peers

____  5.  Is impulsive

____  6.  Loves to win at everything; hates to lose at anything. Is both a poor winner (boastful, arrogant) and a poor loser

____  7.  Seems to derive satisfaction or pleasure from other’s fear, discomfort, or pain

____  8.  Seems overly concerned with others “disrespecting” him or her; equates “respect” with fear

____  9.  Seems to have little or no empathy for others

____ 10. Seems to have little or no compassion for others

____ 11. Seems unable or unwilling to see things from another person’s perspective or “walk in someone else’s shoes”

____ 12. Seems willing to sue and abuse other people to get what he or she wants

____ 13. Defends his or her negative actions by insisting that others “deserved it, asked for it, or provoked” him or her; a conflict is always someone else’s fault

____ 14. Gets excited when conflicts arise between others

____ 15. Stays cool during conflicts in which he or she is directly involved

____ 16. Exhibits little or no emotion (flat affect) when talking about his or her part in a conflict

____ 17. Blames other people for his or her problems

____ 18. Refuses to accept responsibility for his or her negative behaviors

____ 19. Shows little or no remorse for his or her negative behaviors

____ 20. Lies in an attempt to stay out of trouble

____ 21. Expects to be “misunderstood, disrespected, and picked on;” attacks before he or she can be attacked

____ 22. Interprets ambiguous or innocent acts as purposeful and hostile; uses these as excuses to strike out at others verbally or physically

____ 23. “Tests” your authority by committing minor infractions, then waits to see what you’ll do about it

____ 24. Disregards or breaks rules

____ 25. Is generally defiant or oppositional toward adults

____ 26. Seeks/craves attention; seems just as satisfied with negative attention as positive attention

____ 27. Attracts more than the usual amount of negative attention from others; is yelled at or disciplined more often than other student

____ 28. Seems mainly concerned with his or her own pleasure and well-being

____ 29. Has a close network of a few friends (actually “henchmen” or “lieutenants”), who follow along with 

whatever he or she wants to do

Pornchai's Conversion Story

Those of you who follow Fr. Gordon MacRae's story on These Stone Walls might also be interested in reading about his cellmate, Pornchai Moontri, at divinemercy.org. The article, Mercy - Inside Those Stone Walls, speaks about Pornchai's conversion and his entrance into the Catholic Church. It's a beautiful, grace-filled story that I highly recommend to everyone.

BRRRRR.....Now THAT'S Cold

"Overheard" online this morning:

It's so cold outside that...

...the cows are giving ice cream instead of milk

...the politicians in DC have their hands in their own pockets for a change

...my get up and go got up and went south for the winter

...our snowman knocked on the door and asked to come in

The Finger of God

"Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give it to you. Do not let your hearts become troubled or afraid." John 14:27




I've been meditating on this verse from John for many years now. When God first drew me back to himself I used to beg and plead for his peace daily. God would give it to me but I would lose it again easily as the cares and anxieties of the world set back in.

The Lord's peace... oh, how I craved this. The finger of God upon my heart always.

This is the precious gift I've longed for my entire life...this peace that surpasses all understanding. I reached for it but it kept slipping through my fingers. I could not grasp it, I leaked grace like a broken vessel. Because I was (and am) a broken vessel.

I didn't know that God especially treasures broken things. That He tossed aside his crown and came down to earth to save what was broken.

I didn't understand that He gave his peace to broken men.

 God wants us to have peace during our earthly journey. When Jesus gave his peace to his disciples they were far from perfect so this peace isn't dependent on your "idea of perfection". No, this peace flows from the understanding that God loves us dearly. It's a gift to his beloved sons and daughters. He treasures each and every one of us and knows who we are and who He created us to be. In order to trust in God's picture of us, we first need to throw out all the false pictures that others have painted for us over the years. And the ones we have painted for ourselves.

Toss them out like the garbage they are.

But what if we think that others just may be correct in the way they see us?

They can't be correct because they can only see a tiny piece of who you are.  Without seeing and knowing the deepest part of you they cannot have this kind of understanding of who you are.

You are not who others think you are, no one knows you but God. We become layered with other people's misconceptions of us until we cannot even see ourselves anymore. They form clouds over our hearts blocking out the full light of God's love.

Ask the Lord to reveal your true self. It may be gradual (or not), but God will show you that only His perception of you is the true one. And you are His child. Counterattack your unloving thoughts about yourself with the knowledge that He loves you. He loves you with an infinite love. Believe in this. It is total truth. Let Him love you; you were created to live in this love. This love is the firm foundation of your entire existence. Let your life flow outward from this base of love and things will run much more smoothly. We place in our path so many obstacles to receiving the clear light of the Holy Spirit and this need not be so.

Remember to treat yourself with the same mercy that God treats you with. God is incredibly merciful to us and so, we too, must treat his creation lovingly...which includes ourselves.

May the finger of God be upon you always.
 

Tools for Healing

God wants to heal us. If there is one thing I've learned over the years it is that God desires to heal us more than we desire it ourselves. Christ came to heal the wounds of sin and this healing begins in time. That may seem pretty obvious to many but you'd be surprised at what I hear at times. One of the oddest is that we aren't healed until we reach Heaven. Yes, I've heard this statement a few times too often. Until that time we are left to our own devices. When I think about it I realize that this type of thinking makes God seem...well...

...stingy.

 As if He withholds healing and grace at whim depending on his mood that day.

Yikes!

That sounds more like us, if you ask me.

Many times we are blocking the healing in some way. We may not like to hear that we still have a lot of inner work that needs to be done.

Pride may be a factor.

We are impatient and want God to heal us instantly but very often we need to learn things about ourselves first. What if He gave you an enormous healing but because you have certain patterns of behavior or thinking that aren't healthy you end up right back where you started? Wouldn't that be worst? God wants to heal us...but He wants it to stick.

God's not going to heal an area that you refuse to let Him touch so the first thing to do is to invite Him into the area you are asking Him to heal. A simple prayer like this is fine:

Jesus, I am in deep need of emotional healing and I ask you to begin to bring healing to this area of my life. Today, I place my emotions under your gentle mastery and I  place my trust in your healing love.

Here are some things to consider:

~ Naming your emotions - This is very important for those who have suppressed their emotions for years.
    The first step in naming your emotions isn't so much getting this right as it is becoming aware that you have emotions...and very strong ones at that.
~ Feeling these emotions and bringing them  to God in prayer. If I cannot do this during the course of the day then I do it at bedtime when I go over my day with the Lord.
~Pay attention to your emotional responses to others. Years ago, the Lord made me aware that I sometimes used my emotions to manipulate others instead of speaking clearly and addressing the problem.
~ Many of us were taught that certain emotions were sinful and this is why we suppressed them. Though our brain may tell us it's ridiculous, we automatically feel guilt when we become angry. If you look back into your earlier years you may find that this is a conditioned response. Anger in itself is not a sin - it's what you  do with the anger that becomes the problem (taking it out on others, sitting and stewing in it).
~ Exerting rigid control over your emotions is draining and they'll "leak" out in various ways if you don't address them as they come.
~Using religion to cover up the inner work that needs to be done (doing more and more outwardly to mask inner conflict/ attempting to change others before changing yourself - excessive religiosity). An example would be a person who focuses too much on the outward signs of religion while neglecting the inner because their pride won't accept the need for personal change.)
~ Be aware of the connection between suppressed emotions and the Seven Deadly Sins (For example
    "stuffing" your emotions with food. Addictions are common among suppressors because they deal with emotions in an unhealthy fashion. If gluttony (over-eating, alcoholism, substance abuse, over-exercising, etc..) seems to be a particular problem for you this may be a sign that you need to work on your emotions. Sloth, too, has a connection with the emotions. They all do.You may have a better chance of overcoming these if you address the area of your emotions first.

Here's a quick list of tools and tips that may be helpful:

~Generational healing/ healing of the family tree
 
    - Intergenerational Healing by Fr. Robert DeGrandis
    -Healing Your Family Tree by Fr. John Hampsch
    - Life Missions, Family Healing by Michael H. Brown
    -Claretian Teaching Ministry (website)
    -Camelot Warfare Library  (website)

~Inner Healing
     - Praying the Rosary for Inner Healing by Fr. Dwight Longenecker
     - Healing Through the Mass by Fr. Robert DeGrandis
     - Catholic Therapists.Com - There are some good articles here
   

~Naming your emotions - don't worry if you are wrong at first, the point is to notice that you actually have the entire package of feelings.

~Accepting your emotions - don't immediately push them away without attempting to discover what they are trying to tell you. While emotions are certainly not the first thing we should rely on, they can still give us a great deal of information about ourselves. Give them their place but make sure you don't give them first place. As I wrote in a previous post, you cannot master your emotions if you are unable/unwilling to express them -they will always master you. Whether subtly or overtly, if ignored, they will exert  an influence on you.

 ~Paying attention/going over your day with the Lord.

~Reading the Psalms. David was a very passionate man and the Psalms express many different emotions. He never hid them from God, but rather, expressed them freely in prayer. This is a good model for us to use.



The glory of God is a human being fully alive.
                                       St. Irenaeus

A Firm Foundation for Healing

There was a crooked man and he walked a crooked mile,
He found a crooked sixpence upon a crooked stile.
He bought a crooked cat, which caught a crooked mouse.
And they all lived together in a crooked little house.
                           A Mother Goose Nursery Rhyme

I always loved this nursery rhyme. Even as an adult I can relate to this "crooked man who walked a crooked mile". Every part of his life was crooked and I wonder if he was even aware how crooked everything in his life was? Or, did everything look straight from his crooked perspective?

Sometimes we are not even aware of just how crooked and skewed our perspective on life is and things look straight to us when they are really off kilter. We have a difficult time discerning the truth about things. For example, look at what's going on around the earth right now.

It hasn't escaped my notice that even the earth rotates on a tilted axis. I sometimes kid around with the Lord and ask if He did it on purpose to make up for our skewed vision. "I'll just tilt them a bit to the right since they tend to list to the left by nature."

 I know, that is sooo...not funny ;) Plus, it doesn't really tilt to the right - it all depends on how we look
  at it.

But the point I'm making is that we often don't even see  our own "crookedness". We are bent but since everyone around is bent too it's not as obvious as it should be.

Or it wasn't...until someone who was not bent at all stepped into the picture. He came and taught us how we should live. He laughed and He cried. He grieved and felt fear. He got angry. He was not afraid to show his emotions.

In my last post I spoke about the difficulties we face when we stifle or bury our emotions. We may lack peace and joy in our lives or feel as if something is missing. We feel far from complete. I think the first thing  some of us may need to understand is that all people have the same basic emotions as we do. God didn't parcel out joy to one, sadness to another, fear to the third - it just doesn't work this way. Yes, each person is unique and some emotions may take precedence over others depending on the person's individual personality but God doesn't withhold joy on a whim. Temperaments are different but we all carry the full package of emotions.

So where do those who need emotional healing start?

As I wrote in a previous post a good place to begin may be with the way you see yourself. I say this  because it's much more difficult to accept the healing that the Lord longs to do if you don't love yourself. I'm not talking about the negative kind of self-love that is selfish and self-serving - I'm talking about the kind of love that stems from the knowledge that God loves you totally and completely. The bad kind of self-love stems from loving the false you - the one you created (with the help of others), not the real you that God created in his image and likeness. The reason why I published the post on self-image first is because we have to be able to accept gifts freely. How can God heal someone who pushes away the gift He offers? (I don't deserve this gift, etc...) God's grace is not about deserving, it's not performance related. We have to cut loose wrong thinking such as:

If I try hard enough to please Him maybe God will heal me. Many of us realize that this type of faulty thinking doesn't come from God but usually stems from an upbringing that was based on conditional love... and there may have been many, many, conditions to receiving this love. These messages may have been spoken or they may have been silent messages - love withheld for performance reasons that leave a child in a place of trying to earn love all the time. The problem with this is that we take these spoken or unspoken messages into adulthood with us and continue with that "people pleasing" mentality. And it never, ever works. Just take a look at the performance based society we live in and then take a look at the fruit it has borne. Abortion is another fruit of this type of thinking.

God works things the other way around. First you are loved and all else that you do proceeds (or should) from this love. Mother Teresa knew God's love and her great works proceeded from this love.

Man, if you only knew how hard God has had to pound this into my head. "You are loved not for what you do but for who you are - my child."  I was a people pleasing, performance based thinker through and through. I still battle with this at times. No wonder the Scripture, "And Pilot, wanting to please the crowd, released to them Barabbas" always bothered me so much. This people pleasing thing had to go. The work wasn't the problem, the thinking was. (Remember when I mentioned the "double yoke" syndrome in a previous post? Here's another reason for it.)

The performance based life makes you feel like a puppet, the love based life frees you. This base matters very much. It's far easier to do things from a position of love. Think of the word "performing"-
doesn't it make you think of acting or pretending? God doesn't like "performing" either - we are people, not trained monkeys. (Please note : I am not speaking about the theological issue of justification here but rather our having a firm foundation of love to stand on.)

A big plus of working from a love base versus a performance base is that the first allows grace free reign while the second stifles it.

 So, the question is:

  Are we living out our lives from the solid base of God's love? From our true selves? Or does the way we live proceed from the very shaky foundation of trying to please others (performing/ego boosting).

I stress this love base so much because in order for us to receive the emotional healing we need we have to trust God and feel safe in His Presence because that's exactly where we want to place ourselves to receive this healing. If we don't have this confidence we will more than likely get up and walk away the minute our "avalanche of suppressed emotion" really starts dislodging. Especially if you were taught that certain emotions were sinful. But here's a comforting thought: God already knows everything that is within you  (the good, the bad, and the ugly and some of it is very ugly) and has loved you up until now so it's safe to let this stuff out because you aren't hiding anything from Him anyway.

Emotional healing often comes through prayer. If we don't recognize that God is doing this interior work in us we may mistake it for harassment during prayer. I was afraid at first when "emotional junk" started coming up during my prayer sessions years ago. There were times when my entire prayer session strictly consisted of this kind of upheaval. I used to battle it until I figured out what was going on. Over time, I began to notice how much better I felt within a day or two after these sessions. As if huge burdens were lifted off of me.

We can ask God specifically for this type of healing too. He certainly knows we all need it to some degree or another.

Another thing that has helped me tremendously is praying for intergenerational healing and healing of the family tree. This had an enormous effect on my life. I noticed some immediate changes after going through these series of prayers. If there is a lot of "yuck" in your family history this may be a good area to hit. I had a grandfather who was a 32nd degree Mason and I will go so far as to say it's crucial to do this if any of your ancestors were involved with freemasonry or any other type of occult activity.
We had other issues in our family line but none as detrimental as this. It was worst than everything else all  put together. Freemasonry and Christianity can never be mixed.

In my next post I'll share some other tools and resources that have been helpful to me. God gives us so many avenues of healing that it is a shame if we don't reach out and grasp them. When one person in a family is healed the whole clan reaps the spiritual benefits of it.

Especially the children.



Intense love does not measure, it just gives.
                                    Mother Teresa

Emotional Healing

I'm going to be very honest and admit upfront that dealing with my emotions has been one of the more difficult aspects of my spiritual life. As a matter of fact, maybe the most difficult thus far. Those who were raised in dysfunctional households as children may be able to relate to this post more so than those whose emotions are well integrated into their "personhood".

I spent years living as an emotional "train wreck". Of course, I wasn't aware I was an emotional "train wreck", I barely acknowledged my emotions at all. This left me feeling very fake - almost as if I was a robot in some ways. I don't know how many times in my life I've plastered fake smiles on my face for others so that all would look well on the surface. This is what I was trained to do, to keep up appearances at all costs. This is not my parents' fault - they were taught to do the same. Plus, society also sends us the message that only certain emotions are "acceptable" and the less acceptable ones should be shut down before they cause trouble for ourselves or others.

Do you suffer from a lack of peace? Do you sometimes feel as if the joy that's supposed to anchor a Christian's life passed you by? As in:

 God, I think you might just have forgotten to put the joy gene in me.

I believed this for a good portion of my life.

It's a lie.

If we suppress our emotions our entire lives the joy that lies beneath them gets buried under the avalanche of this emotional junk.

And I had a heavy-duty avalanche on top of me that left me feeling crushed and excessively burdened.
I had trouble believing Jesus' words,  "For my yoke is easy and my burden light."

Every time I'd read this I'd think, "Oh no, your yoke weighs a ton, Lord."

Then I realized that it wasn't the Lord's yoke I was carrying (which I'll speak of further in another post).

A large portion of my "double" yoke (lol) was from the weight of years of emotional turmoil that had not been dealt with. It was so darn heavy that I felt like I was trudging through water most of the time!

 And it still does sometimes... but it's getting better. It's funny, but I thought my load would get heavier as I grew in Christ but the opposite seems to be happening. Though I deal with similar circumstances, its impact is lessening.

So how do we know if we are under an excessive emotional burden? (You all know how I love lists so here comes another one...lol.) While this may not be true for everyone here are certain "signs" that may point to it (you may have a number of these symptoms or just a few):

~ You sometimes feel like you are wearing a mask. You feel a bit "unreal" or "fake".
~ There's a lack of steady peace and joy in your life
~ You feel numb ( Your body may even go numb, as in panic attacks, because your body is giving you
  clues as to your emotional state.)
~ You are confused or spacey
~ You lack energy (because suppressing emotion uses up A LOT of energy, so does pretending)
~ You get sick often ( The body expresses what you cannot. There has to be an outlet. We are body,
    soul, spirit and one reflects on the other. When they are in conflict with each other there are always
    symptoms of some sort whether it be illness or other bodily manifestations of the turmoil within
    you.)
 ~ You were taught that certain emotions were unacceptable.
~ You have a lot of "triggers". Someone will accidentally touch one of these hot spots and you over-
    react.
~ You have difficulty naming your emotions for what they are. Grief, sadness, anger, etc.. - you aren't
    quite sure which one you are experiencing. (For me, I've often found that when I dig beneath my
     anger I find grief. This surprised me at first.)
~ A troubled thought life. (Things bubble up as the avalanche of "stuff" dislodges. This is not a bad
   thing if handled in the right way. Once you get over the shock of what comes up, that is. Some of
   the stuff is unpleasant so our first reaction is to deny it access but this just further exasperates the
   problem.)
~ You have difficulty making choices (Those leftover emotions are exerting their influence even when
   you are unaware of that influence so you become confused at which choice is best.)

I am in no way suggesting that we should give in to our emotions and let them fly all over the place. What I am suggesting is this:

Your cannot master your emotions if you are unable/unwilling to express them -they will always master you. Whether subtly or overtly, if ignored, they will exert  an influence on you. In other words:

You will be a slave to them. A prison is a prison regardless of whether the prisoner is behind the walls of a pretty mansion or an iron fortress.

 There is no such thing as a part-time slave.