So I last wrote in August about being broken and how I believed God was breaking me down-like a lego tower being dismantled piece by piece (if you look down the bottom there should be a button that says 'previous' try clicking there :) ) So I got to the end of myself, this pile of broken me all over the floor and left going 'What now?' God's timing is always perfect and had allowed circumstances contribute to my breaking, which is hard but I realise for me, now, necessary. Then a light, staff conference for CAP which as ever, an awesome time to come away and to rest, to be with God and his people and hear His heart. It was exactly what many of us needed. But in my mind, my thoughts I was struggling-because I was in pieces. But God used this time to even speak to me in my brokenness-He is so good to us and everything in me was crying out for more of Him but there was stuff He had to deal with first
As I said in my last blog this period of brokenness had led me to confess my deepest,darkest sin not only to people I loved but people I respected most in Christ. I had arranged to drive up and see these friends after conference with Rosie and whilst I wanted to see them-almost more than anything else in world, I could have also waited forever for that day to come...because I knew what it would mean. It would be coming and be totally honest about who I was. Something I had not done for 11 years (this is how long I had struggled/sustained this). You see they had offered to prayer it through with me, to ministry to me and through the Holy Spirit deliver me from it. This is something I had always and yet never wanted because it would mean letting go. It would mean allowing this persona which I had held up all my Christian life to fall...to open the locked door and let God look inside pull it all out and see all the damage it had done. So I picked up Rosie and we drove. Our friends live in Scotland, just over the boundary, in the middle of nowhere in a converted church (complete with grave yard in the garden :) ) now with a fully facilitated log cabin attached in the back yard. It is so peaceful not just because of position but because of presence, the presence of God. Its a beautiful place. So we arrived and in all honesty I don't remember alot about the beginning of the night...and then we came to prayer. I won't go into everything we prayed because I'm not here to talk about the formula...that's not what this is about...but I can tell you one thing: God came in the room and his angels were in room. I'm not saying this because I saw things (which I did) or because I heard things (which I did) but because I am a different person as a result of that night, I am not the same person. There is a song by Godfrey Birtill that says
'Just one touch from the King changes everything'
and I have always said/sang that and kinda believed it and kinda knew it to be true but following that night I knew it was true...
But I have to honest - I didn't believe it initially-I explained-like some of my other God experiences, to feel incredibly different and be on some weird sort of high, like I was floated on clouds and it was all nice...but it didn't and I woke and went to bed feeling very normal, being tempted by the stuff I had just been 'delivered' from and this disconcerted me abit...I was uneasy myself-I felt different but I also felt very me, very human and as the weekend went on with more prayer and time in the presence of God I became increasingly anxious about going home and this change was just going to stay here and I was going to go home the same as I had so many times before...then a song that came to me on the Saturday morning that we pumped out of the car on the drive of home,Holding Nothing Back-Tim Hughes:
I am chosen, I am free,I am Living for eternity,Free now forever
You picked me up, turned me around, You set my feet on solid ground, Yours now forever
And nothing's gonna hold me back, Nothing's gonna hold me back, Nothing's gonna hold me back
My chains fell off My heart was free,I'm alive to live for you, I'm alive to live for you Amazing Love, how can it be?You give everything for me
You give everything for me
Everything
You washed my sin and shame away
The slate is clean: a brand new day,Free now forever, Now boldly I approach your throne, To claim this crown through Christ my own
Yours now forever...
I'm free to live
Free to give
Free to be
I'm free to love you
And I realised, this is true for me now-This is who I am...I am changed and I had a choice, do I chose to live with the change or do I ignore it? Casting crowns put it in one of their songs
'Jesus, how can I be sure I will not lose my follow through between the altar and the door?'
But I realised, that's the point-its JESUS that has done the change-its NOT me, its God, HE is the one who has changed me, HE is the one who has set me free, HE is the one who has touched my life. I have had to make a choice to continue to live in that though...so I currently have boundaries to help me including having someone babysit my computer for a while-hence the lack of blogs (just so you know).
I have been utterly broken. I know now there is NOTHING of good in me, except what Christ has done in and through me. He is the one who has cleanse me, set me free. I am by no means the finished article and I know that will not happen until I get to be with my Lord in glory (oh Lord for that day to come) but I know that I am NOT the same person-I still look the same, talk the same, walk the same but I think completely differently. I feel light...that's the best way to describe it. It is like a light has finally been turned on in the last room of the house...the darkness that haunted me is no longer there because the light of Christ has exposed it and for years being blinded by the light-I've now allowed it to shine.
So am I still broken? Yes but, "My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart you, God, will not despise." Psalm 51:7
and Jesus talking about himself as the cornerstone :"Anyone who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; anyone on whom it falls will be crushed.” Luke 20:18
Yes I am still very much broken...but I am allowing God to put me back together bit by bit built on a foundation of Him and only Him.
He is so beautiful and is worth EVERYTHING.
