Mikki's Blog - Living in the Grace and Love of God » Soul Care

Why You Must Go Back

Mikki — Tue, 18 May 2010 13:19:36 +0000

God’s ways are mysterious, beyond my understanding and often seem downright contradictory. While in my humanity, I prefer to think in straight lines which lend themselves to defining a goal as completed, a task marked off, I find that God’s ways are usually not pictured best by straight lines. They are paths which appear, at times, intertwined, difficult to map out, going forward, then backward, orbiting around a center, and often perplexing my human mind. The longer I walk with God, the more clearly I see that He is truly not confined to my limited understanding. He is working, often His deepest purposes in me, when I am clueless.

This week, I was meditating on two of the seemingly contradictory ways of God. In the next few days, I want to explore these two thoughts:

1. You must go back.
2. You can never go back.

Huh? Sounds confusing? I hope you are intrigued sufficiently to continue reading for both statements are true and I am not being ambivalent. There are times in life when you must absolutely go back. You must go back, as it were, in your mind, your emotions, your relationships, to moments of the past and experience the moments again. There are some very important reasons for us to go back. And in other ways, we must never go back and in fact, cannot do so, but that is for another day this week.

We are the sum total of our life story. Often we are not really happy about that. We all wish we could erase or at least, rewrite, pages, even entire chapters, of our story. I personally love the undo key on my computer. If only life were so simple! Surely it would be better if we could just get rid of the painful parts of our story! Yet with God, there is a sense in which we become better, stronger, more complete, because of those very parts of our story.

You might say, “How can I embrace the darkest days of my life? How can I accept the darkest parts of my story?” I can only share what I have experienced.
My life story has had many pages, even chapters, of failure, pain, and disappointment. For most of my life, I’ve done my “dead level best” to avoid thinking of those days. I tried my best to forget the painful chapters. Many times I’ve ripped up a photo if it made me think of something painful as if ripping it up would make its reality disappear. I learned to be quite an avoider of painful memories. Then my life fell, what appeared at the time to be, completely apart. Humpty Dumpty, who had a great fall, looked to be in great shape afterwards compared to me. But enter the mystery of God…

I’ve found that God’s deepest work in me often happens during days of my personal suffering. Certainly as Christ suffered on the cross, the greatest work of God was happening in and through the suffering. Suffering changes the human heart. It can transform us into strong, beautiful people who can walk in the contradictions of God’s ways or it can turn us into weak, bitter people who shake their fist at God and anyone else who would get too close to our wounds.

When I found myself in deep brokenness, I could no longer keep my painful memories stuffed inside their deep grave. They sprang forward for they were not dead and I found myself face to face, for the first time, with my story. Like a jack-in-a box, I tried to stuff the story back in but to no avail. Initially, I could only barely stand to take a quick peek at the previous chapters of my life, but I have learned to allow my heart to re-experience my story.

And I found this amazing mystery. It is my story that equips me. It is my story that connects me to humanity. It is my story that offers hope to others. It is my story that makes me accessible, approachable.

So today, I want to encourage you to go back. When the things of your past are still controlling who you are in the present, go back. When the things of your past are still influencing you in unhealthy ways, go back for you must go back in order to go forward. Here are some of the reasons you should go back:

1. To find healing. If a memory is still painful to see, to think about, to reflect upon, perhaps you need another level of healing in that place. God is not confined to time as we are. He can transport you, as it were, to those places where He longs to meet you to bring healing to you.

2. To gain understanding and perspective. When we are able to view our story with Christ, we can often find that it was not exactly what we had believed. Lies can be dismantled.

3. To find God. Going back can allow us to discover where God was in our story.

4. To grieve loss. If we haven’t truly grieved over a loss in our life, then we need to go back and experience that. God’s Word says there is a time to mourn.

5. To break the power of shame, guilt, and pain. Allowing the power of the cross to wash away the power of shame, guilt, and pain can bring deep healing to our souls.

6. To find compassion for your own heart. Many of you need to ask God to show you how to have compassion on your own heart. Self-hatred is a tool of the enemy.

7. To find the common themes of your story. These can help you find your purpose in life.

8. To find hope for the future.

9. To discover keys to helping others.

So today, I want to say, “You must go back!” If part of your story is buried alive, if you have ignored, denied, or avoided your story, it’s time to go back. Redemptively. Just as William Paul Young describes how Mack in The Shack has to go back to a painful time in his life to find restoration and healing, we must do the same. The beauty of going back is the mystery of how the going back becomes the key to going forward.

Perhaps your “going back” should be done in the presence of a spiritual director, a counselor, or a very trusted friend. Certainly, it should always be done with the leading of God’s Spirit for he is THE COUNSELOR. He knows when and how we should address our past. Our part is to cooperate with his work when he is leading us in the paths of redemption. Nothing is wasted with God. As Richard Rohr says, “In God’s reign, “everything belongs,” even the broken and poor parts.”

May God’s grace lead you in paths of healing as you continue to learn more about His mysterious ways.

Doing Life Differently

Mikki — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 15:15:32 +0000

If you are in the wrong place in your life, there is only one way to get back to the right place and that is through repentance.

Two years ago, my husband and I found ourselves in the wrong place and have since experienced many life changes brought about through repentance. One of the things we have committed to in order to continue these changes is annually setting aside a week for self-evaluation and input from a Christian counselor. Last week, we spent four days in Denver, Colorado, with Michael Cusick, founder and president of Restoring the Soul Ministries, a ministry dedicated to providing life-changing soul care for Christian leaders.

While I was spending some moments evaluating my relationship with God, others, and my own heart, Michael shared his definition of repentance with me – doing life differently. Although the definition contained the essence of other ways that I had defined repentance throughout the years, it struck a chord of new understanding inside my heart. For me, the definition provided a way for me to evaluate my life in relation to repentance. At that moment and for the days following, I have been looking at my life and asking myself, “Where are the ways that I can say I am doing my life differently? Where is there evidence that I have changed?”

Many times I have “repented”. I have asked for God’s forgiveness for my actions, attitudes, and words. But how many times have I continued in the same patterns? How often has there been no tangible evidence of change in my life?

The definition both comforted and challenged me. I was comforted because I truly am doing my life much differently than before. There are so many areas where truth has found its resting place in my heart and has sprouted change. Areas where I might never even remember saying the words, “Lord, forgive me,” but areas where obviously God’s Spirit has initiated and birthed change. I am different and I do life differently. I have repented.

Many of those areas were areas that I previously was unaware of, areas where I didn’t even realize that I was doing my life “wrong”. Perhaps I was just doing life in ways that were “normal” for my family of origin. In other ways, I lived with the familiar paths which had been created in my soul. But one of the beautiful things about a relationship with the living God is that He is always leading us in the paths of righteousness. He leads us to repentance. He speaks to us about our wrong ways of relating and incorrect thought patterns.

And I was challenged as well as comforted. I was able to identify areas in which there has been no true repentance in my heart because I have not changed.

As I meditated on these truths this morning, I thought of how Jesus encountered individual people. With the rich young ruler, Jesus felt love for him as the young man recited how he had kept the law. Jesus challenged him to do life differently. “Sell what you have and give it to the poor,” and the young man sadly went away from Jesus because he was unwilling to do his life differently.

When Jesus encountered the woman caught in adultery who had broken the law, he again felt love and challenged her to do her life differently saying, “From now on sin no more.”

When the religious leaders of the day came to John who was preaching, “Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand!”, John told them to bear fruit that was worthy of repentance. In other words, do life differently.

The work of repentance is birthed through God’s Spirit. According to Romans 2:4, his goodness leads us to repentance and that happens in many ways but however that happens, the repentance will look like change.

I suspect that I am not that different from the rest of you all, and for me, repentance often comes because of pain. Pain leads me to see that I am making wrong choices, living in wrong patterns. And God’s goodness comes in the pain and shows me the new ways He has chosen for me. Ways that will bring life to my soul. Ways that will guard my path from wrong choices.

Jesus responds to my heart with love just as he responded to the rich young ruler and the woman caught in adultery and so many others. His love offers me the new ways to live. When I choose those ways and begin to live my life differently, I have repented.

Repentance doesn’t mean perfection, but it does mean a change of direction. Our paths will still have some ups and downs as we travel in new directions, but our ongoing direction will be different.

It’s a little like my GPS. When I set it on a certain destination, it tells me what road choices I need to make to get there. When along the path, I decide to take a different road, the GPS adjusts to my choices and gives me a new route to use. Sometimes that new route is much longer than the original choice but it will still get me there.

When we repent, we set our hearts on God’s plan for our lives. Sometimes we take a wrong road, and God graciously gives us an alternate path. It may be more painful, take longer, and cost more, but we can still get there because God is committed to us. He began the good work inside us and He will complete that work (Philippians 1:6).

As for me, I have committed anew to some changes I know God is calling me to, some areas where I need to repent. I want to do my life differently in those areas because I know that repentance brings peace and blessing and wholeness. So I set my spiritual GPS. I align my spirit with the Spirit of God and set my course. I know those changes will cost me. They will cost me my comfort at times. They will cost me my pride at times, but ultimately they will produce the good fruit that comes from a heart set on God’s path.

Hopefully in the days to come when I ask God’s Spirit to come and examine my heart, there will be the fruits of repentance. I will be able to say, “I am doing my life differently.”

The Inner Journey

Mikki — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 12:21:45 +0000

In his journey to list the seasons of life, the writer of Ecclesiastes throws this one in…

There is a time to kill and a time to heal. Ecclesiastes 3:3

Since this section of scripture was originally written in Hebrew, and we now have it translated into English, perhaps it would be helpful to know what the original Hebrew words meant. The Hebrew word used here for “heal” means to mend, to cure, to repair, make whole, heal, or physically cure. The Hebrew word used here for kill means to smite with deadly intent, to wound.

What kind of things do we need to kill? We need to kill the things which are enemies of our spiritual, mental, and emotional health. Learning to identify what things need to be killed is the tricky part. Our discernment is not always perfect.

Dying to our flesh and living unto Christ means killing the things that take our away our breath and our ability to breathe in the life-giving spirit of Christ.

For example, when I struggle with judgment, unforgiveness, bitterness, malice, etc., these are things I need to deal with. They take away my spiritual, mental, and emotional health. But how do I deal with them? Ah, here is the part that takes wisdom and discernment. Yes, these things need to go, but why are they there in the first place? This is important to know. For example, if I struggle with anger, it may not just be anger which needs to be put to death. What is the source of my anger? Perhaps it is really fear. Oftentimes the issues we try to put to death are really issues that need to be healed. They will never die if we just bury them alive. They will just pop up in some other area of our lives. Don’t ask me how I know.

Sometimes we Christians set out to kill all our “enemies” when some of what we view as an enemy is really our friend. Instead of being an enemy, my anger might in reality be my friend telling me that something is wrong in my heart, something deeper than my anger. Maybe there is a deep wound which needs to be healed, or perhaps I have what we might call “root issues” or issues stemming from my family of origin. These issues color all our perceptions and relationships.

As I look back at the things which have been giants throughout my life, I remember one of the moments when I looked into the eyes of the giant called the fear of abandonment. I was looking back over my life story with my counselor. And for me, it was a moment of acknowledging the plans of the enemy which had been tailored against me specifically. Having been adopted at birth, I had this deep sense of having been abandoned. The story had been played out over and over again in my life. And the details really don’t matter, what matters is that I faced it and continue to face it at times. That fear hindered my relationship with God and others. It led me to build walls around my heart, keeping others out so they could never get close enough to hurt me by abandoning me. Acknowledging this fear made me feel vulnerable but I sensed the challenge of the Holy Spirit. Would I risk unveiling this deep place within my heart or would I resist the work of God’s Spirit who was leading me to healing waters? Would I take down the walls I had unknowingly built around my heart now that I could see them? Would I make myself vulnerable at this moment while my husband and counselor watched? And if I risked taking down those walls, did I have the promise of never being abandoned again? This is an issue I have with God. He promises good for our hearts, but He doesn’t guarantee a bump-free flight in getting to the land of good. In Psalm 42, the Psalmist paints the picture of a deer panting for living water. It is really a picture of vulnerability. The words used indicate that this was a mature deer, educated by the experiences of his life. He took a risk by openly drinking from this stream, yet his thirst drove him. I felt like that deer during that moment. Would my thirst for healing and freedom be enough to drive me out into the openness? I stepped into the open. I wish I could say that I have always stayed there ever since that moment. I haven’t, but I have learned to increasingly live in that place.

Like taking down the walls around a city, walls that were built to keep enemies out, makes that city visible and accessible to friends and enemies alike, taking down the walls around my heart has allowed others into my life in ways that make me more vulnerable and at the same time, allowed me to be more deeply intimate with my family, friends, and church. It has allowed me to drink deeply of living waters. As I have written before, it is the both/and principle of God. I have become more vulnerable AND stronger at the same time. Not one or the other, but both/and. God’s ways are so mysterious, aren’t they?

One of the benefits/risks (both/and) of being vulnerable is that I have gained some friends who hold my feet to the fire, so to speak, refusing to let me run away when the temperature gets hot. They hold my feet to the fire if I drift away from what my heart knows is true. Recently a friend asked me, ‘Why is it so difficult for you to write your thoughts in greeting cards when you can write your feelings for the world to read?” Ouch, I was nailed. I looked right at her and said, “Because it is more intimate writing to someone I am deeply in relationship with; it is more risky; you might reject me. The world wide web is not nearly so personal.” Her eyes said she got it, but she won’t let me by with it anymore. She and other dear ones keep watch over my soul to help me identify when the “enemies” are in close proximity.

Then a spiritual brother of mine shared with me how he had difficulty writing to those close to him and he wondered why. When I shared my journey, he shook his head and acknowledged the “ouch” of the truth’s pain. He shared that he had been working through that, particularly with his daughter, but now gained insight from my story.

So back to my original point. There is a time to kill. A time to kill the enemies of our soul but first we must discern what the enemy looks like. Perhaps a short list would include the opposites of the fruit of the Spirit (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control). We need to put to death what Paul calls selfish ambition, envy and strife. We need to smite these things with deadly intent because they are serious enemies.

In the Old Testament days, God sometimes had his people go in and kill all the enemy. In my humanness, I probably can’t explain that, but one thing I do know is that God’s message was that the enemy would continue to perpetuate the things that would destroy God’s children as long as they were allowed to exist in any shape, form, or fashion.

Thank God for the New Testament! But the principle is still applicable. In the New Testament, we are shown that the land we need to conquer is our internal land. The enemies of our spiritual life need to be dealt with. Seriously. We can do that by bringing those enemies into the light and allowing the work of the cross to put them to death.

And as we deal with other people, we need great wisdom. Let us not be too quick to tell others how to deal with certain issues until we know God’s heart on the matter. Let’s make sure we identify the enemy for when we deal with the hearts and souls of humanity, we have an awesome responsibility and an amazing privilege. It seems to me that the more time we spend pursuing our own enemies, the more easily we can recognize the true enemies in others and they are not always what we would assume they are. Sometimes, the enemy is camouflaged. My husband and sons are avid sportsmen, therefore I know a lot about camouflage. Camouflage needs to be adapted for different terrains and it must be changed according to the season. Satan camouflages in the same way. He disguises himself and his plans in order to disappear into the terrain on which we are living so that he is not obvious unless we slow down and take a good look. His disguises change with the seasons but that shouldn’t discourage us because with each passing season, we have the potential to gain wisdom for the next one and we have the potential of growing in relationships with others who can help us identify our enemies.

So whether it is a time to kill or a time to heal or both, there is always grace for the season we find ourselves in. Journey on, my friend.