I ALMOST MISSED IT!!

I'm writing for Five Minute Friday and this week's prompt word is ALMOST.  

Recently I stumbled across this beautiful song.  I almost missed the beauty in it because it actually really annoyed me, though I wasn’t sure why. 

These are some of the lyrics:

Lord, this is my desire

To pour my love on You

Like oil upon Your feet

Like wine for You to drink

Like water from my heart

I pour my love on You

If praise is like perfume

I’ll lavish mine on You

Till every drop is gone

I’ll pour my love on You

I love worship – corporate or private.  I love singing.   I love finding new songs.   But this song was triggering something deep in me that I couldn’t put my finger on. 

When I sat down on Saturday afternoon, to write for this word prompt, ALMOST, I started to write about many of the people in the pages of Scripture who almost missed their breakthrough – healing, forgiveness, a clean slate, a new beginning – whatever it was, but pushed through their own resistance and fear, doubt, exhaustion, cultural taboos and so much more, to get to Him.   And He wasn’t being elusive or hard to catch.  Oftentimes, like with the woman at the well, and the man at the pool at Bethesda, He came to them.   He was listening to His Father and so He was in the right place, at the right time, or sometimes not, in the case of Lazarus, but even that was right and as His Father had planned it. 

The story that jumped out to me the most and that the Lord has had me sit with is the one of the woman turning up at Simon’s house with an expensive jar of perfume – very expensive.   I learnt this week that there were several women who did similar things, but this was a woman of ill-repute and Simon knew that.  

How hard would it have been for her to push into that room and get to Jesus?   How much was going through her mind, let alone seeing the angry and judgemental stares from men and women alike, men of good standing, when she was so low.    I wonder if she almost turned around and gave up?   Had she already encountered His love or did she just hear about Him? 

And here’s Jesus, a righteous man, whose righteousness was far above just keeping the law, who did not rebuke her, knock her, reject her, turn away from her but actually received her love and her offering, poor as it was, for the gift that it was. 

She loved Him deeply, in a way that Simon did not and perhaps could not.   She was broken before Him, broken and lost and having nothing good in herself to offer Him except her very broken love. 

It spoke to me because that is exactly how I’ve felt lately, and for a long time, as it turns out. 

I’ve been very frustrated that the Lord keeps finding new things to heal in me, new layers to rip open, new wounds, new faults, new sins.   None of it is new to Him, of course, but it’s been new revelation to me.  

I didn’t realise how much I was feeling more and more hopeless about it never ending and Him never being satisfied with where I’m at.   I’ve become increasingly depressed about my level of brokenness and feeling like I wasn’t ever going to be healed enough for Him.   

It’s been a long three years and I thought I would be okay by now but the more He heals, the more I realise how unhealed I’ve been and the more I’ve become concerned about never being whole.  Quite a few times lately I’ve sat with my pastors and just cried in frustration and pain about my brokenness and feeling like it’s not going to end, that there’s more lurking beneath what I can see, even what they can see, and it’s going to be this way till He comes or I go to Him.    That’s a very debilitating and depressing mindset.  

I was asking for Him to restore to me the joy of my salvation but that felt very elusive as well. 

Create in me a pure heart, O God,
    and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
11 Do not cast me from Your presence
    or take Your Holy Spirit from me.
12 Restore to me the joy of Your salvation
    and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.   Ps 51:10-12

Pastor Carolyn has said to me quite a few times lately, ‘The Lord is jealous for you, jealous for your love, jealous for your heart and that’s why He’s digging so deep’.   That was supposed to encourage me and spur me on to spend more time with Him.  It didn’t because I processed it through a faulty filter, as it turns out.   Oh, I spent more time with Him, and tried harder, strived more, worshipped more, but it didn’t change my frustration.  I wasn’t sure what was going to. 

One night, on the phone, while my girls were away at their dad’s place, she said to me, ‘Just get into worship and love on Him’.  

And then I happened upon that song, while looking for something else. 

And it’s beautiful but it just made me angry. 

So, I switched to another song and He dealt with something else instead, as He does.   But He wasn’t finished on this issue.  

He started to speak to me about this woman, the one who poured very expensive perfume on Him, the one who was judged by everyone in the room, except the only One who had the right to judge her. 

Her offering of brokenness and love, poor as it must have felt to her, was enough for Him. 

I sat with the Lord on Saturday morning, for hours, as I do every Saturday morning, and tried to sing the song, but I just couldn’t get past this sense of not being enough.   So, I asked Him what that was about.  Because I know from reading the Word for years that He is not like that - not demanding more than we can give, not unsatisfied with us, not turning away our worship and praise. 

So where was it coming from? 

He started to remind me of how it was when I was a teenager.   After I managed to stop the sexual abuse from my father by locking him out of my room and making sure I was never alone with him, ever, he started to verbally attack me every time I entered a room.   Before and during the months of sexual abuse, I was his favourite person and he made sure everyone in the family knew it.  But afterwards, it turned.  The attacks were cruel and constant, and he never missed an opportunity to make a point, to say something demeaning and degrading.  He made very negative comments about my weight, my hair, my appearance, my clothes, my abilities, my school work, my guitar playing, my attitude - anything and everything.   He made every trip to town difficult to the point where I would often walk the 5km home rather than sit in the car with him.   He made every meal time a battleground.  He would set me up for failure consistently by giving me tasks I didn’t have the skill set or experience for.     I learnt that he was unpleasable and to just switch off and not respond because he fed off my response, but inside I was dying. 

While I don’t live with that now and he’s polite to me now, because there’s always someone around that he’s trying to impress, I lived it for the last five years of my life in my parents' home, and I had internalised that as God’s attitude towards me.    I have always felt like what I do, whatever it is, is not enough, not good enough.   More than that, who I am is not enough, not good enough and never will be.   And that people love me because they’re amazing, not because I am lovable. 

In my prayer session with Pastor Carolyn on Sunday afternoon, I brought up the phrase, ‘He’s jealous for you’ and said, ‘yeah, so was Dad and look where that got me?!   I feel like He’s constantly asking me to do what I can’t, give what I don’t have, ready to pounce on my failures, setting me up for failure, never satisfied with how far I’ve come, and never satisfied with what I bring to Him – in service, in worship, in just who I am.’

As soon as I spoke those words, I knew they weren’t true.    But I didn’t know how to move forward. 

She wasn’t sure either, so we just sat and prayed quietly for a bit.    

She got a picture from the Lord of a dark cave on the edge of a beautiful river.   That dark cave was where I rehearsed those thoughts and beliefs about myself and Him, based on my experience with my father.   But He, my Lord, was standing there waiting to walk up this river with me, in the light.   She said there was colour, pastel colours, in this scene, but wherever we walked together, the colours turned into beautiful, shining colours.   

And she kept saying to me, 'His relationship with you is pure and righteous and good.'  Sometimes you just need to hear those words.   There is no hidden agenda.  His jealousy is a holy jealousy, not something insidious and evil.   Once again, I'm learning how incredibly damaging sexual abuse is, especially from a father.   It totally destroys your ability to trust. 

But God - nothing is too hard for Him to mend.  There is light and life and goodness in this open place, but I had to let go of the cave, to actually step out of it, to stop wondering how and why I’m so broken, and just walk away.   It’s time to move forward.   

It’s time to stop looking back.   Will there still be triggers – yes! But they don’t have to drive me back to the cave of my father’s words.   How do you do that when you’ve lived out of it for so very long and your very long marriage simply reinforced that?

This is very similar to other pictures that He’s given me where I have to choose to let it go, leave it behind and stop looking back.  So many times lately, I have seen and heard and been told, ‘Stop looking back!’.      

While I was sitting with Carolyn, and she was explaining this picture to me, and the need to just step out and look forward, I heard Him say, again, the words He’s said to me a lot lately – live loved.     You don’t have to work towards love or strive for it or prove something.   Live from love, not towards it.  

That changes everything.    Can we live in the light of His presence and the assurance of being already loved, not almost loved?   It's not almost!  It's already a done deal, finished, sorted, settled.   

Or do we need to keep lurking in dark places of fear and striving, because that’s so familiar to us?  

How precious is Your lovingkindness, O God!

Therefore, the children of men put their trust under the shadow of Your wings.

They are abundantly satisfied with the fullness of Your house,

and You give them drink from the river of Your pleasures.  

For with You is the fountain of life;

in Your light we see light.   Ps 36:7-9

Can we live loved?   It’s almost the same as what we hear from our pulpits but oftentimes we process that and internalise it as ‘try harder, do more, be more, give more, worship more.’   But He is saying, our starting point is His perfect love.   

Worship because He is good and you love Him and you’re grateful, not to impress Him.    Love because you’re loved, not to gain love.   Give because you’ve received.    Serve because He has shown you what that looks like.    Do good works because you are receiving grace and can therefore pour it out.   Surrender because He is good and safe, not to strive to keep Him happy.  

I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.  Rom 12:1,2

For of Him and through Him and to Him are all things, to whom be glory forever. Amen.  Rom 11:36

Rejoice in the Lord, O you righteous!

For praise from the upright is beautiful!  Ps 33:1

So, I’ve had that song on repeat since Sunday afternoon, the one I almost deleted from my song list on Spotify.   I’ve been singing it since He asked me to step out and move forward, especially these lines, and especially in light of the woman at His feet, knowing that my worship, poor as it is, is enough for Him and really, that's all that matters. 

If praise is like perfume

I’ll lavish mine on You

Till every drop is gone

I’ll pour my love on You