An update! (or, i'm still alive!)

Its been a long time. I've been uuber busy, packed to the gills, ruled by the tyranny of the urgent, whatever you want to call it. I've been feeling that "stuck-ish" feeling that I get when I find i'm moving in the wrong direction and the momentum has built up to the point that its difficult to stop. My Bible time has become fairly non-existent, my facebook time has increased and is increasingly unsatisfying, and i'm faced with the prospect of SCHOOL looming ahead. The monster i've feared, and its approaching with reckless abandon. Yet, as I contemplate putting my children in school this year, i am optimistic. Cautiously optimistic. I'll have time every day to go to the gym or walk with the babies in the stroller. I'll have plenty of time to play with them one on two. (not bad) AND, most exciting, i'll get a naptime, a time where there is QUIET in the house.

But at any rate, all the stuff going on in my life and in my head has distracted me from focusing on the process of healing that i'm still largely intrenched in. And the process centers primarily around maintaining a good solid relationship with Jesus. And that's suffered, badly. I happened upon Mary De Muth's site and signed up for her mailing list and got her free ebook "Live uncaged" And i've been reading it ever since. Its a carefully pieced together compilation of her blog posts and one jumped out at me in particular. It was from the article "The Mark Part 5: Choose your enemies wisely"

She talked about how when you focus SO much on your enemies that they occupy more of your memory than your friends, you have a problem. One part that she wrote jumped out at me. (But PLEASE, if you struggle with similar issues as me, read the whole article, the whole book, whatever of hers you can get your hands on!!) She writes:

Oswald Chambers says it beautifully. “Let the past sleep. But let it sleep on the bosom of Christ, and go out into the irresistible future with Him.”

We have an irresistible future! We don’t need to follow U2′s words. We don’t need to be defined by our enemies. They do not have power over us. They cannot haunt us if we’re pressing forward, looking to the future, awaiting the new things God brings.

Jesus asked the paralytic in John 5:6 the question He asks you today: When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, “Do you want to get well?”

You have been in your condition many years now. Do you want to get well? Really? Would you rather rehash the past over and over in an endless loop of pain, or do you want healing? I have found that most people don’t pursue healing. The difference between the healed people and those still living in the past defined by their enemies is this: tenacious running after healing. You have to want to get well so bad it wakes you up at night.

The truth: THERE IS NO PASSIVE HEALING.

The truth: Your enemies no longer need to define you.

The truth: You can be set free. You can experience rivers in the desert.

The truth: With Jesus, there is an irresistible future.

And that's what it comes down to- the simple, honest to goodness, only way, narrow road, hard but super easy, burden is light yoke is easy, purest love you will. ever. find. truth: Its all about Jesus. You can search all your life, you can try every "religion" that offers peace, you can read every self-help book on the market, you can resign yourself to the idea that you will always be damaged and wounded, but its a lie. Its ALL a lie. There is no use for "religion" only "relationship" is powerful enough to change you.

Only relationship with HIM is enough to purify your soul which feels dirty, hopelessly relentlessly dirty.

Only relationship with HIM can teach you to FINALLY love yourself, and forgive yourself, and tame that cruel taskmaster that lives inside of you, never content with what you have to give. He's not a brutal taskmaster.

Only relationship with HIM can show you how wounded your perpetrators are, how entrenched in their own misery they are, to this day. How they seemed so big, powerful, and evil at the time, now they are just small and sad, and miserable.

Only relationship with HIM can teach you how to become someone you never knew existed. It all starts with HIM. Its all about Jesus. I hope with all that is in me that you know Him. He already knows you :)