Being Brave

i've just finished listening to Rob Bell's teaching on salvation being a way in which we are made completely whole, salvation as a holistic influence on our entire beings. This is something that is always on my mind, but has been more toward the front in the past few weeks, especially in the area of finding healing in my family. I come from a family of deep, deep pain, spilinters that are festering and pussing and have been under clasped, hiding hands for a number of generations, and it seems that it is my generation in which God has chosen to begin that healing process.

I want to find healing for myself. I want to be free of this junk, this stuff in my life, of these people who have the ability to swing swords and then pick the scabs. I want to not be one of these people, I want to cycle to end with me. For the past few years, God has been doing huge stuff, really tearing our lives apart, but I know there are still things that aren't done, things that i gaze off into the distance for and become anxious, wonder what else i could be doing to speed up the process.

And as i comtemplate my life, all that i want to see different in my family, I see myself as very fearful, a little girl cowering in the corner. A verse that has had duel affects on me is Romans 8:15, "For you did not recieve a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you recieved the spirit of sonship, by which we cry, "Abba," Father." I used to hear verses that refer to not having a spirit of fear and become ashamed that I had fear. But this verse is refreshing maybe even because of the deeply personal implications and the way it hits my life on the head.

When I think about interaction with my dad specifically, i think this is the place where i become afraid. I hate that feeling, but its the truth. In his message, Rob Bell was talking about this man who traced his geneology back as far as it could go and he dove deep into the junk of his family's past, found out about it and made sense of why he does what he does. And in that illustration, something in me just said, "YEs! I want to do that!" but i don't even know much about my own dad's past and for some reason am afraid to ask. Its a painful past, a pain that you can see in his eyes, but is shrugged off and shoved down a little farther it seems. Its painful.

A few weeks ago, i took a camping trip with my family. During the trip, i was thinking a lot about why we can't choose just to love each other, why we bicker and fight instead of just letting the little things go. But sometime after having this thought, it occured to me that things go much much deeper in families, in my familiy. There are deep wounds, open flesh that get brushed and bumped and all we can do is hollar. it hurts and its not just about who clears the table. its deep. and i would like to uncover the wounds and find healing.

But I am afraid. I can't do it alone. But its something i want. I remember many years ago, there was an article in Brio magazine about dating and it gave a number of questions to consider knowing who you are before entering into these types of relationships. One of the few questions i remember on the list was What one thing would you give anything for? And strangely enough, my answer was that i would give anything to see love and healing come into my family... and only a few months later God began picking at those wounds, totally rearranging our lives to begin that process in a very painful way. I have never experienced pain the way I did during that time.

And so here I am, facing the rest of my life. In less than three weeks, I will begin my official journey of adulthood and i am wondering when and how i can find this healing. I have faced this question many times in the past year as i have begged God to allow me to run from it, to simply move on with my life and take the scars and leave the rest in the gutter, hopefully forgotten. Thankfully, he said no. And so i face my future reality with maybe a few more questions, the hope of finding the strength to look at the blood and allow him to clean it up.

Healing. Just now thinking about the concept of it, i think healing is something that often seems unfathomable to the sick. When you are the one in need of the healing, the burden seems so great that the idea of actually walking someday is beyond your reach. But there is a healer who has seen it all, who knows the pain of it all, and is dying to see our new lives. Just as we delight in being his vessel of healing, we cannot even imagine his delight in seeing us healed. Seeing me healed.

So those of you out there, please be in prayer for me. Have you ever had a goal that just seems too large to even get your mind around actually pursuing? I need your help, your prayers, your support. Please ask me the hard questions, pray that this coming year would be one of tremendous awakening, of hope and crazy answers beyond my imagination. This is a very long journey that i hope some day to see the end of so i can begin a whole new one.

Abba, my Father, you know my heart tonight. You know how just the word healing brings the hope of fresh air. Bring wholeness and healing to my bones, give me patience for the bandages and wounds that are still there. Give me courage to face the things I so greatly fear, continually remind me that my spirit really isn't one of fear and that you are a Father to the fatherless, the one who i can always run too. You are teaching me to stop hiding from you and begin hiding in you. Take this year ahead of me, even these few weeks, even this next day, these next moments, make them full of your healing, your refreshing. So often when i think of this place I am in, i think of it as in the midst of a rushing river. Sometimes the current seems to die down and i don't feel as chilled to the bone, but there are other times when i must look to my right and to my left and see you there. I remember thinking not too long ago that the only thing i can do is thank you for placing me in the family you have placed me in because somehow this is good- everything you do is good. So Abba, give me patience and contentment, even on the days it hurts the most, on the days when i just want to run and hide. Bring me out of hiding, banish my fear so that I can see you in all your glory.

Thank you Abba, that your work is healing, that you have begun your restoration in me. I am in the middle of it now and you are planning to take me farther, that the working out of the salvation is a beautiful work, a relvelation of a new wonder each day. Lord God, I am overwhelmed by all the junk I need to wade through still, but Abba God, I know you are already ahead of it and you will direct each step at the proper time.