WHAT I LEFT BEHIND

This is my post for the Five Minute Friday prompt word LEFT because it resonated with me, but there just wasn't time to get it out there when that prompt came out.  

I've been a bit behind on writing because we've been moving house.

I didn't just move house.   I left behind a different season, a lot of memories, some old mindsets.   And I left that house a different person than the one who moved in five and a half years ago.

I moved there, with two young children in tow, to care for an older daughter.   But even after she left for a better chance at getting the medical help she needed, I knew I couldn't go back to the farm, nor to the previous situation that I had left behind.   

I wasn't sure what to do next except that I needed some down time to just rest.   What transpired after that rest was 2.5 years of the Lord ripping the scab off very old wounds.  I sure didn't see that coming.  I had left those wounds untouched for a very long time, partly to protect people in my birth family.    But God had other ideas.    

And so, one year into that healing journey, I started to realise that my marriage was very dysfunctional, and I couldn't go back to how it was when I left the farm.    I realised that I couldn't heal as a person or stay healed if I went back to how it was when I left.    I realised, through many principles that God showed me, that in that relationship I wasn't growing as a person, but rather surviving and slowly dying, physically, but also mentally, emotionally, spiritually.   

We needed a new way forward.   I wasn't sure what that new way forward was, but I knew I couldn't go back to who I was or how I was.   

Trouble is, you can only make the decision for yourself to move forward.  You can't show the other person that things need to change or that you have changed.    I had spent years trying to change the dysfunction I had been able to see.    Now I could see things so much more clearly and that is a continually growing revelation, about myself, about him, about our relationship.   

Sadly, you can't make the other person to change even if they can see it.   Change is hard, really hard, when it means facing your own wounds and frailties and insecurities.   And change is voluntary;  it's a choice that each of us can only make for ourselves.     God pursues us to heal and make us whole, but the choice is left to us.    He is the One who transforms us, changes us.  Only He can do that.   And only if we surrender to His healing hand, in repentance, in sorrow, in tears - whatever it takes.   

The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit,

A broken and a contrite heart - 

These, O God, You will not despise.   Ps 51:17

I sure didn't sign up for it voluntarily, except that I had been singing dangerous songs like 'Come, Tear Down the Walls of My Heart'.   Apparently, He took me seriously, as He does.    And being in regular fellowship in a good church has a way of exposing your frailties and wounds and insecurities.  Isolation had kept them somewhat hidden.   

When I left the farm on that day, six years ago, it was for just a three-week trip to see how I could help my older daughter, who was desperately unwell, and many hours away.   However, when I drove out that gate, I got this strong sense that I was done there.   That was weird because that wasn't my intention.   I was concerned because I thought maybe we'd all be killed on the trip up or back and that was perhaps why I got this impression.    Looking back, I can see now that I wasn't just going on a three-week trip.   It would be a three-year journey of helping someone heal, albeit falteringly on my part. 

And then it was my turn to heal.   

So, here we are.  I've left behind a long marriage, many memories and many lessons, and a comfortable home full of a lot of stuff.   I've left behind another home, though it was only a rental.  It was our home, our God-given home for five and a half years, and it was a good home.    But I've also left behind a lot of wounds, a lot of pain, a lot of half truths, a lot of not-good-enough, and an unhealthy view of my heavenly Father.   

I finally left all that at the foot of the cross.   

And the man I left behind?   I still miss him and I'm not done done.   I've left the door open an inch, because God asked me to, even when I was extremely angry and I had good reason to slam it shut.   

But I can't have that door wide open until he's ready to let God heal the wounds that make him wound others, especially those closest.     I'll wait.   

What I've picked up on this healing journey, (along with our copious amount of stuff, that filled a huge truck and then some), is a higher view of Him, and a deeper capacity to love because I am loved.

I'm now trying to recognise the remaining half-truths that are still left lingering, like the stuff in our endless boxes and tubs.   And I'm trying to recognise what I need and what I don't need to take into this new season.   

The only way to do that successfully, and not just slide into old defaults, is to be constantly in His Word, and in His presence and in fellowship.   

So, onwards and upwards.    As I find new homes for things, and decide what needs instead to be left at the charity shops or in the bin, I'm trying to find new truths to build my life on.   

Who is the man that fears the Lord?

Him shall He teach in the way He chooses.

He himself shall dwell in prosperity,

And his descendants shall inherit the earth.

The secret of the Lord is with those who fear Him,

And He will show them His covenant.

My eyes are ever toward the Lord,

For He shall pluck my feet out of the net.  Ps 25:12-15

But the Voice of Truth tells me a different story

The Voice of Truth says, "Do not be afraid!"

And the Voice of Truth says, "This is for My glory"

Out of all the voices calling out to me (calling out to me)

I will choose to listen and believe

I will choose to listen and believe the Voice of Truth