BREAKING HURTS

When I saw this week's Five Minute Friday prompt, BREAK, I was amazed because it fits so well with what I've had on my heart all week, and had already started to pen.   So it's not a five minute write, more like ten.  

I've been on a breaking-the-mould journey now for about two years.  I didn't sign up for it.  I did not see it coming.  I remember praying some dangerous prayers, out of desperation, and singing some dangerous songs of surrender, but I didn't know where that would lead.   I wanted relief but I got a reworking instead.  With that has come a great deal of relief, eventually, but not the way I thought.   

God's heart is for healing and restoration and fulfilment.  He has wanted me healed more than I have wanted to be or knew I needed to be.    His desire is for me to have an abundant life, to fulfil His purpose for me.  

I cry out to God Most High, to God who fulfils his purpose for me.  Ps 57:2

God has a definite purpose for each one of us.   And it's often NOT what we've been led to believe it is, or what we've told ourselves it is.    What I've discovered over the last two years is that His purpose for me is quite different to the purpose others have had for me.   

Sadly, some of us are born into families, or end up in significant relationships, where our purpose is to primarily meet their 'needs' or fulfil their agendas.   They use their position or authority or power to fit us into their mould of who we 'should' be and we mostly are compliant because we're young, vulnerable, impressionable, needy, misled.   

Sadly, those who are significant in our lives are often damaged by having had to squeeze into someone else's mould.   And so they try to regain control and a sense of security by squeezing us into theirs.  And so the cycle goes on, until someone breaks it. 

That breaking is very hard.   The breaking of the mould.  The breaking out of the mould.   The breaking of long-held, 'normal', family, relational expectations.    It's very difficult to be the one who sees the need to break the mould and to then actually break it.   It's very hard when you're the one who is rocking the relational boat because you know that eventually that thing is going to sink and take you down.    You've already been more damaged than even you can see and it's time to get out and trust yourself to the One who is walking across the waves, holding out His hand, and saying come.  

But instantly He spoke to them, saying, Take courage! I Am! Stop being afraid!  Matt 14:27

When you break relational ties, break free from expectations of what you should do because you always have done, when your relationships break down because you've suddenly said 'no' to things you finally realise are wrong, you become the bad guy.   If you are the one that breaks it, then you are the one who's having some kind of crisis or who is 'crazy' or bitter or dysfunctional.  Those who have benefitted the most from the dysfunction do not like you breaking out of the mould.    They lose power but it also makes them incredibly insecure and uncomfortable.  Rocking the boat isn't comfortable for anyone, including the one climbing out.   

But they have a choice, just as you do.  They can break out of the dysfunction too, and lean hard into the same I Am and let him break their mould too.    

And He said to them, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear!”  Mark 4:9

But if they do or don't respond, you can't keep sinking with them.   Each person needs to have their own relationship with the Saviour, their Redeemer, the God who has a purpose and is waiting to fulfil it.   

That doesn't mean we're free of commitment or responsibility or faithfulness to others, but faithfulness to Him and His mould, His purpose, His sovereignty, must come first.  We have to fear Him above all others; worship Him above all others; honour Him above all others.   

The fear of man brings a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord shall be safe.  Prov 29:25

Behold, the eye of the Lord is on those who fear Him, on those who hope in His mercy. Ps 33:18

We all want to belong, to be accepted, to be affirmed.   We look for that approval and acceptance and affirmation from our earliest days and weeks and years, and we believe we've found it in our close relationships.   Oftentimes, we come to believe that their opinions, their words, their affirmations, their disapproval are the truth.   That is our normal.   If we've never known anything else, then our normal feels natural.   But it isn't.  

Like a fish trying to climb a tree like a monkey, or an elephant trying to swim like a fish, or a monkey trying to fly like a bird, you can spend your whole life 'failing' at stuff you're not designed to do, not meant to, not predestined to do, not gifted to do or to be, just to fit the mould of the big people in your life.   We rarely look beyond that perspective to His until we realise something is wrong.  

In striving to fit that mould, we miss our purpose, our God-given purpose, and we miss thriving.    We miss the abundant life He came to give, promises to give, if we follow Him.    We miss out on the rest He promises.  We miss out on a yoke designed specifically for us, by the God who created us and who knows us and our strengths and our weaknesses.

Come to Me, all you who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.  Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”  Matt 11:28-30

The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.  John 10:10

I love the story of the Ugly Duckling, because it is a powerful illustration of how we can be convinced, by those in our immediate circle, that we are faulty, ugly, that we are failing, that we need to keep striving, adapting, changing, to be loved, accepted, to belong.  One day, when he finally sees his reflection, the 'ugly duckling' realises he never was a duckling.  He's always been a swan.  And that is liberating because he's no longer failing at being a duck because he was never meant to be a duck.  He realises that the perception of the significant others in his life is merely their limited understanding of who he really is.   

If we listen only to the words of significant others, and believe only their reflected value of us, then our perception of reality can be very distorted.   

One day, we get a glimpse, however small, that we're not who they say we are, or were, and we realise in some part who we were created to be all along.   We start to understand what our mould is, the one we're meant to fit - God's mould.   

We've all heard the saying 'a square peg in a round hole'.   I'm not sure where that came from, but it sounds painful.  I'd never really thought too much about how much damage that would do to the square to have to squeeze into a round hole.  That's what unrealistic expectations and demands do.  That's what intentional squeezing does to us.   And that's what abuse does to us.  

https://the-art-of-autism.com/the-shape-shift-square-pegs-dont-fit-into-round-holes/

What is our natural shape, the mould God designed for us?   How much have we been damaged or been squeezed, or squeezed ourselves into other moulds for the finding of 'love', when all along real love draws us into His design and His acceptance and His purpose and His delight.   

We have to break out from the false moulds we've been squeezed into, or squeezed ourselves into and lean into His.   

But breaking out from under another yoke, breaking that yoke, breaking that mould, breaking those expectations, even the breaking down of relationships - it's all hard and painful.    Any kind of breaking is hard.  It brings grief and confusion and fear.  You're so disoriented because you don't really know who you are, you just know who you're not and you can't unknow it or unsee it.  

It really is like walking on the waves and those waves are scary.   It seems easier to climb back into that relational boat and go back to 'normal' because it's familiar and easier and feels 'safer'.  But it isn't.   Not in the long term.   

Like a butterfly whose been in the dark and goo for so long, breaking out of your cocoon takes strength and determination and a certain degree of courage.    Being a caterpillar is all you've known and yet there is this pull for more, for something beyond yourself, Someone beyond yourself calling you out, but it takes a breaking to get to it.  And it's unknown and scary and hard.  But in the breaking out, you build muscle, you are strengthened and your identity is sealed, and eventually, you learn to fly, when before you could only crawl.

I'm still working it out.   Two years on, and it's still not solid for me.  I'm still unlearning some stuff about me.  I'm still not flying, not soaring, but not crawling either.   I'm still learning just how much I've adapted myself and squeezed myself into moulds that God did not make - just so I can be loved, accepted,  and belong.   

And it's made a mess.   It has broken me, in many ways, but He is the God who heals, who binds up the broken-hearted and restores.  

It's HIS purpose I want now and it's in HIS purpose that I find my real fulfilment and strength and the ability to thrive, instead of surviving and failing and giving up and giving in.     

It's His truth I'm after now, and I will settle for nothing less. 

He shall send from heaven and save me;

He reproaches the one who would swallow me up. Selah

God shall send forth His mercy and His truth.  Ps 57:3

But I am like a green olive tree in the house of God;

I trust in the mercy of God forever and ever.

I will praise You forever, because You have done it;

And in the presence of Your saints

I will wait on Your name, for it is good.  Ps 52:8,9

But now, O Lord, You are our Father; 

We are the clay, and You our potter; 

And all we are the work of Your hand.  Isa 64:8

This song speaks so loudly to me of trusting myself to the Potter who knows exactly what He's doing and who can be trusted.  

My world is spinning, my life seems so out of control

Nailed, scarred hands tell the story of love that will never let go of me

Through the sunshine or rain, I know where my hope is found

What You started in me, I know You will complete from the inside out

And as I fall apart

Come flood this desert heart

Fall like the rain, Living Water

And I know Your way is best

Lord, help me find my rest

And I'll be the clay

In the Hands of the Potter

My world is breaking me, Your love is shaping me

And now the enemy is afraid of what You're making me

When my world is breaking me, Your love is shaping me

And now the enemy is afraid of what You're making me

My world is breaking me, Your love is shaping me

And now the enemy is afraid of what You're making me