LET GO OF THE BLANKET

Sometimes the Lord will wake me with a sense of urgency to get up and listen.

I talk to the Lord every morning, but sometimes His presence has an urgency about it.

On Sunday morning, 4.30am, that was the case.  

A friend had asked me a 'difficult' question on the Friday afternoon, to help me move forward on an issue.   She's good at asking the hard questions and I love her for it.    When your friends love you enough to ask the hard questions, you should appreciate them and say so. 

But, I didn't like the question or the pain it unearthed.   I spent all day Saturday unsettled and pretty angry, not with her, just about the stuff it brought up.   The Lord was asking me to let go of something I'd hung onto for a long time, years in fact, but it felt wrong to let it go and I said so to Him - all day!  I was angry - with others, but mostly with myself.     I knew what He was saying and why, and I would have said it to anyone else about the same issue, but not to myself.    Why is it so hard to give ourselves the grace we often extend to others in a similar situation? 

But the Lord had warned me a couple of weeks earlier not to park in the angry bay when something rose to the surface.    So I knew I had to keep short accounts with this and get His perspective on it.  

So, back to Sunday morning.    He showed me a picture.   Now, when I get random pictures that are not connected to anything I've read or seen or heard, then I pay attention.

This was the picture - a homeless man, on a bench, with a dirty, smelly, old blanket wrapped around him.  

What are you saying, Lord?

No response, except the sense to look again.   My heart went out to this person.  I wanted to take that smelly, dirty, old blanket and give him a new one, or give him a place to stay.   But he didn't want to let go of the blanket.  It was all he had.    He wrapped himself up even tighter and he didn't want to leave his 'safe' place.   

So, I said, "Lord, You've got my attention.   What's this about?"

His answer stunned me!!    

'That's you, clinging onto your old blanket of shame and guilt over your miscarriages.  It feels right because it's familiar, but it's as unhealthy for you as that horrible, old blanket is for him.   You were homeless because you had no spiritual or natural family to share your grief with, so you wrapped yourself in your guilt and shame and anger.  It's time to let it go and receive my covering instead.'  

A picture speaks a thousand words.   There's nothing like a picture to break through all your arguments.  I had nothing left to say.     So, I wrote a heap of stuff on a piece of paper that I needed to let go of, and threw it in the fire.   I didn't feel any different, but oftentimes powerful emotions don't just go away.   

But we weren't done.   Now I just felt 'naked', and incredibly vulnerable without my blanket.    So I went to church feeling incredibly raw and unworthy.    The sermon was about freedom in Christ, how He came to set the captives free - from shame, guilt, addictions, etc.  I've heard it all before, I've even preached it.   But this time it was a little too close.    I really thought I was done with shame - it's been a big deal in my life.   Here I was, realising there was yet another, thick layer of it, and I was dealing with it again.   I was incredibly frustrated. 

Once again, I found myself wrestling with the Lord about getting prayer at the end of the service.  It's a regular occurrence in our church, as it should be.   Each time I get prayer, it's a different issue but I would love to run out of the need for it.   Each time, I wrestle with it, because I'm tired of the need for it, and worry that others might be tired of praying for me.   

So, up I went and two of the pastoral guys came and prayed, grabbed my hands, anointed me with oil for healing (they didn't ask what it was about - I was barely holding it together and they probably knew it).    One of them prophesied and what he spoke gave me hope that this will one day ease up and I really will be able to live free of shame and guilt and brokenness.  

And then he did something that broke down that sense of unworthiness and shame I was still feeling, even though I'd let it go.   He gave me a hug.   That just about did me in.    That hug broke that sense of unworthiness that I carried up the front with me.   

God knows what we need.  He gives us friends to ask the hard questions.   He gives us friends who see the pain on our face that lurks under our plastic smile, and without probing, they just smile, hug and pray.  He gives us friends on the end of the phone, friends who send late-night text messages with God's promises, and their love.    He gives us a place to belong, a church family that becomes a place of healing.   He gives us honourable, protective brothers and gracious, loving sisters.  

He also gives us random pictures at 4.30am and then explains them in a way that leaves us with no resistance to His healing work in our lives.    He unsettles us, and creates in us a restlessness that only He can satisfy.   He exposes deep wounds so He can fill those deep places with His love.  He asks for things He knows we shouldn't be carrying, and replaces them with His goodness.   

Oh, that men would give thanks to the Lord for His goodness,

And for His wonderful works to the children of men!

For He satisfies the longing soul, and fills the hungry soul with goodness.  Ps 107:8,9

Some words from one of my favourite songs, Goodness of God

And all my life You have been faithful 

And all my life You have been so, so good

With every breath that I am able

Oh, I will sing of the goodness of God ............

'Cause Your goodness is running after

It's running after me