40 Day Journey-Days 4-10

If you read my last post, I explained that I am on a 40 day journey to:

1. forgive some people that have inflicted deep pain
2. trust in God’s goodness and his desire to provide my every need
3. to cease from using my protective strategies

Days 1 – 3 were not easy & I was left feeling like I was never going to pull off an entire 40 days. Since I’m doing the opposite of myself, rather than hide these feelings, I’m sharing all of my crazy with you. Instead of isolating myself & hiding away or behaving as if nothing is going on, you lucky readers get to read all of the feelings & experiences that I would much rather keep to myself.

The process Josie has set before me for this journey is:

• R- Relaxing my hold. Releasing the tight grip I have on my pain, my finances, my job, my life & the hardest one- those self protective strategies.
• E- Escaping my limiting mindset. You know, putting God in a box.
• S- Start to depend on God. If I believe He is who he says he is, won’t he do for me all that he says he will do?
• T- Triumph! Be successful in forgiving, trusting God & not depending on self preservation during these 40 days & at the end of that I will be able to rest! Whatever that looks like.

Now that I have given you the concept of the process let’s take a little closer look.

Let’s start with unforgiveness. Apparently I have been harboring some unforgiveness towards key people in my past. People that based on the roles in my life, there were expectations & boundaries that I needed them to maintain in order for me to grow up with a healthy foundation. Due to choices they made, the child in me has some cracks in her foundation. Yes, they created those seriously deep wounds. Yes, I’m better without them in my life today. But are they really out of my life with the unforgiveness still holding a spot in my heart? These issues are like an actual physical wound. If not treated properly, the unforgiveness forces the wounds to remain open, festering, becoming infected, filling my bloodstream with the negative results of unforgiveness. These people are still causing me to feel broken by choices they inflicted on me as a child. I don’t know about you but something about this makes me dig in my heels & think “oh heck no! You no longer get this kind of power in my life!” Funny thing about forgiveness. It’s just like most of our emotions, a choice. I have to wake up each & every day & make a decision to forgive them for these transgressions. Until the day it finally sticks.

Self Protective Strategies. I’m kind of a rockstar in this area. I use my self protective strategies at work, at home, at church, at the grocery, literally everywhere I go. Being vulnerable & exposed is not something I’m comfortable with. So this is also a literal choice that I have to make every second of every day. When someone asks me how I feel, rather than say fine, I need to be able to tell the truth. So for the last week, I have said “fine” followed by “no, wait…” I cannot tell you how many times I’ve had to catch myself & backpedal from my standard safe response to give the truth. It has been mostly on small things that are inconsequential yet for me exposes potential for a hurt. I do feel like I have made some major progress in this area. I am very quick to recognize when I’m trying to hide, I have put myself first in a few instances. I even requested a meeting with the department director at work because I was struggling with some issues & I needed her help to create a better process.

Trusting God. This is still a daily fight. Though, I am seeing Him as I work through this obedience. I find myself enjoying my worship a little more, praying without even realizing I’m doing it, being amazed even more than I was before in his glorious artwork in nature. (I’m a sucker for a good sky!) I am still lacking trust in others, but I think I need to trust God more so HE can show me what that should genuinely look like. Oh! And in order to not put God in a box, I’m praying big giant prayers that seem crazy, ridiculous & impossible. I want to see what awesome blessings he has set aside for me & the people I’m in prayer for. I’m praying for my future, for his will to be my will, for that path to be clear.

Ok friends, I love love love you! Till next time, work on releasing your own uglies. Xo