Repentance Road

1. Who has made you feel like they were all there, totally focussed on you? How did their life impact yours?
Mum: gave me life and has taught me everything i know about loving people, most of the good in me is attributed to seeing it modeled in her!
Shane: he set time aside for me and when he did he was really in the room with me — unless he was tired.
Faith: she drops work to come and comfort me when I’m upset, she loves me like so many others don’t… I can ALWAYS run to her. She likes to make time with me away from everything so that there can’t be interruptions.

These three people have changed me forever with their love.

2.How can you refocus to be all there?
I’m pretty good with friends…
I need to pick up my act with jarrod a bit. He deserves more than what I’m giving at the moment. I need to be able to uni-task with mum and show her that I don’t take her for granted. Undivided attention for mum would be nicer. Probably for dad too.

TO BEGIN:

1. Select your three relationships on which you’ll focus
Parents, Best friend and boyfriend.

2.Commit one day a week to do a facebook fast and replace that time with writing a letter to a friend/family member or having one on one time face to face.

CHAPTER 1: Being All There:

The greatest gift you can give other people in life is to be present in theirs.
The way we have begun to live has taught us to think that relationships should come to us; we’re lulled into thinking that creating and sustaining relationships should be easy.
Being there physically shows the other person their importance to you. (this explains alot about why I feel the way I do about other people making so little effort, it speaks volumes and I have interpreted their actions without being taught the reasons behind it — time to play catch up!)

Being there in person shows you care. It makes space for experiences to be shared.

Last time you were with each of your key relationships, have you neglected any of these lately:
GOD: this morning — i need to read more of my bible and pray more.
MUM: last night, i have been neglecting her a little yes.
DAD: I honestly dont remember; we neglect each other.
GUILLAUME: Wednesday, he’s too busy.
FAITH: when she moved out - she has a boyfriend and other friends so I get left out of her life alot.
SHANE: A month ago when we got a lot of issues out on the table, He doesnt want to be with me any more — this is a relationship I’m waiting for the “letting go” chapter in the book.
FUTURE HUSBAND: I haven’t been covering him in prayer as I should have been — been neglectful
 

I notice that I seem to be the one who is neglected. how do i fix this?

2. a time when someone’s unexpected presence meant alot to you?
this has never really happened to me — people say they’ll do stuff and never go through with it.

3. What’s a connection you could make with one of your key relationships this week?
 GOD: intentional “BEING” time - not praying and not reading just being.
MUM: take her for coffee or lunch or take her flowers/lunch at work.

This is ridiculously confronting surprisingly. More so to see what others don’t do for me. 

Please press the release button on me; release your holy spirit and the peace it brings. Release joy, friendship, love and life over me. Release kindness and gentleness in me. Release me from the grip of satan, release the hold that that fear/pride and bitterness have on my heart. 

Epic sucking at life right now.

Teach me to be better.

I love you Lord.

The moment you realise you would rather be completely alone, than feel the loneliness inflicted by your current “friendships”.

Psalm 61

“ 1 Hear my cry, O God, listen to my prayer;  2 from the end of the earth I call to you when my heart is faint. Lead me to the rock that is higher than I,  3 for you have been my refuge, a strong tower against the enemy.  4 Let me dwell in your tent forever! Let me take refuge under the shelter of your wings! Selah  5 For you, O God, have heard my vows; you have given me the heritage of those who fear your name.  6 Prolong the life of the king; may his years endure to all generations!  7 May he be enthroned forever before God; appoint steadfast love and faithfulness to watch over him!  8 So will I ever sing praises to your name, as I perform my vows day after day.”

Who am I that you should call me friend God. I am a despicable friend to you. You have shown me the hypocrisy of my ways; that in my heart I long for others to long for me all the while speaking out of my mouth that the Lord is my portion. I am the one getting in the way of the peace my heart so desires. Lord, you have shown me that I should desire after you. When I am dwelling on sadness and loneliness in my victim perspective, you are there standing by me waiting to love me with more love than the earth could ever hold. I have made vows in the past confessing my love for you, but indeed my vows have been broken; my need to be loved overthrew my need to be loved BY YOU. Lord let me desire your love, let me hunger after your affection, let me seek your attentions; show me how to long for you the way you long for me. I feel so invisible to the rest of the world God, and that should not be as important to me as it has become. I have placed you as a footnote in my life; a way to explain all other things that fill the pages of my book of life. I groan inwardly saying “no one loves me but God.” Why is that not enough for me. Rid me of this greed Father. Why am I so weak, so incapable of being loved by others; so unlovable. Reveal to me the secrets of being lovable. This heartache so acute, colours my every thought, my every action.

If you are love Lord, and you are in me - why am I alone, always?

I am tired of writing to a husband that I now doubt will come. I’m tired of being unwanted. You showed me your love in this verse and as I read it I saw your love for me God. Thank you for loving me in my wretched state; thank you for sending you son to make a way for you to love me.

teach me how to desire you; teach me how to be loved and bring me one person in some form of relationship who will know how to love me, want to love me and love loving me.

Show me how to be strong enough.

Lord, tonight I prayed freedom over one of my dearest relationships and it came, but not at all in the way I expected it. The friendship ended. With honesty and transparency. It’s so beautiful Lord, I feel so much peace and I don’t feel like I’m missing anything; I feel more whole! Lord, teach me to increase in obedience, show me what to pray because this is incredible break through. The freedom that I feel is unexplainable — though my body is in grief. It’s such a strange feeling, the sick feeling in the pit of my stomach and the tightness in my chest and throat; the symptoms that accompany heart ache — but the sorrow is no where to be found!!! I now understand what it means that you will turn my mourning into dancing and my sorry into joy.

I asked for joy and peace God, and you have so lovingly provided. I ask for love, I ask for friendship, I ask for relationship, I ask for increased measures of your spirit. God, how is it that you are so good and so perfect?! What is more flabbergasting is my ability to have weak faith and trust in you; change my heart oh God, that I may walk in the steps you have set me.

God my spirit is rejoicing within me! Why did I not do this sooner?!

Lord let me dream with you now, let me not be robbed of the rest you have promised me. Let there be no doubt that this was by your loving hand, God let me remain in this rejoicing long after I wake — let me not miss what I never had :)

I love you — thank you for this freedom God. Amen

Lord I don’t know this mountain is that I’m up against this time, I just know that it seems impossible. But I know that you’re in the miracle business. I’m going to try this new thing — COMPLETE HONESTY… with myself. No more hiding, no more pretending; just real. Couldn’t hurt, right?

So Dad, as I begin this new adventure into self discovery be with me and guide me. I am tired of having problems. I know you’re the only one who can change my life, my heart, my mind and my circumstances so let’s get down to the nitty gritty and name the issues and see if having them written makes me see solutions with which I can create a list of goals. Here goes:

1. I don’t like myself
2. I feel completely alone and have figured out that what I need most is not acceptance but just to be included. I HATE BEING FORGOTTEN, it hurts more than anything else that people do to me.
3. I feel unattractive
4. I feel like a failure.
5. I sabbotage relationships
6. I can’t take criticism from my parents.
7. I can’t feel you anymore, or hear you, which is part of feeling like a failure.
8. I’m scared to move out, that there won’t be a place and that I won’t have enough money.
9. I am uttterly broken hearted, all the time.

So here’s what I’ve realised just from writing it all down….

Me not liking myself affects my ability to have and form relationships with people. Me not liking myself makes me sabotage relationships. My broken heartedness only adds to this. All of these things are parts of a vicious cycle that continues feeding off itself until i’m completely alone. I know that this is not Godly. I know that Satan’s plan is always to divide and conquer. I just don’t know how to get out of this pit and I’m tired of doing things alone.

Lord, teach me how to love again. Teach me how to have peace, instruct me in the ways of hope and joy. Show me how to be gentle and forgiving as well as how not to be self centred. God, show me the root of all of these issues, reveal to me from where my deliverance muust come. I know that I look forward to the day when I move out, I want to be alone to escape the lonliness — it doesn’t make sense written but it does in my heart. I know that without these trappings in my home I feel a liberated freedom that I know comes from your spirit. Lord search me and show me where I have gone wrong. Heal my heart and show me what I must do to clear away the devastation that has made it’s home there. God, you are good; you and you alone. I love you. Lord help me to stop sabotaging relationship. I am so lost.

Life is mercurial - up and down.

Where are the people who feel led to suffer?

preparation is never time wasted

fasting prepares the body for denial of temptation. temptation resistance that builds character. it is time to be denied. the fast is not the fight, its the prep. we dont understand the difference between denial and deliverance — sometimes we have to learn to say no ourselves and show restraint, not always to be ‘delivered’ by the hand of God from our temptations and indulgences. denial produces discipline.

I didnt realise that my whole life with my dad was a wilderness in which I am meant to grow and prosper.

what do you do when satan is speaking truckloads and God is silent? Get word in you. Through His silence he is saying that you have to learn the promises and hear the things he’s already told you.

I need to remember to praise him anyway…. I haven’t been praising. I haven’t been exalting.

“learn to be strong, Emma — you will see the face of God” - My Lord.

use the fast on your flesh and the word on your enemy

you cannot be tempted with things that you do not want

the only tests Satan has: the lust of the flesh, lust of the eye and pride of life.

I have normalised trauma. I just keep standing up and I have no gas. I’m ashamed to admit that I’m tired cause I’m everybody’s hero.

stop being ashamed that you’re tired, and that you’ve run out of steam. you have been beaten to a pulp and have never stopped to receive — but that season is over. take off your superman suit — even jesus came to empty.

THAT SEASON IS OVER.

“Let me rectify the time you spent in the wilderness, let me make up for that lost time.”

Lord,

I have realised that my courage is real for my friends, but the courage I keep for myself is pretend. I don’t believe for myself that what I have decided could be the right decision — scratch that — I can’t even stick to a decision. My heart is confused God and I know that this is not a “C” word that you tend to align yourself with. So Lord, this is me learning how to worship you again. Everything makes more sense when I write it to you; my thoughts come out in well connected and grammatically correct structures that remind me of sentences.

So I am back at this place again. In the place where indecision rules my life. I notice also that I am back at home with my family. After such a large stretch away I had clarity. I had dreams and goals arise within myself as well as self respect and even desires. Shame was starting to loosen it’s hold on the dreams I have and now being here again I feel crushed.

Grant me the peace of knowing the freedom you have for me once more. I’m sorry that I let go of it only to bind myself in the same chains and locks. Show me the key to this Lord, to being in this place and remaining free and remaining in love. Lord I claim liberty for myself. Teach me the things I deserve. Show me where I deserve better and help me to let go. Show me where others deserve better from me and instruct me on the ways in which I need to pour myself out.

forgive me. teach me. love me. teach me to love and forgive because it really is time to change. the end of this season and into a new one.