Stories that Shine on an Awesome God

Posts tagged ‘identity’

Testing God’s Way

Rose-Marie* stood at the sink washing dishes. By hand. One pan was so dirty it needed special treatment. Like her heart.

She knew God loved her, but her ability to love and forgive seemed wretched. How did God’s way work for her? Or anyone?

She twitched her head. Think of all the scenarios of evil in the world that God’s love has to work through—has to have an answer for—a way to heal and restore without force or coercion. Is it even possible?

She found a scouring pad and spoke aloud.

“God, I haven’t always done well in Your school, in letting You teach me, but now I’m tired of spiritual limbo. Your way must work in every circumstance, for real problems. It needs to work for all cultures and situations. That’s what I want to test.”

“So, what is faith?” The Spirit posed a gentle question.

“It’s naked trust, and I haven’t had much experience.” She bore down on the pan.

“What kind of experience do you need?”

“Experience with trusting for the ultimates.”

“What are the ultimates?”

Life, death, health, economic security. An ultimate for me is to find my reason to be. My place. Who I am. My place of belonging. Another ultimate is to love and be loved. For Your way to mean anything, it must be tested in these ultimates.”

The metal at the bottom shone through. She rinsed the pan and left the kitchen.

That was over thirty years ago, and Rose-Marie, aka Merita Atherly Engen, has had plenty of faith-tests in those ultimates. Some she passed. Some she failed.

Love, however, has never failed.

Most recently, I have gained deeper insight in how God’s way works in some of the most horrendous situations. Specifically of how His love has restored and is restoring the lives of those who have endured childhood spiritual, sexual, and ritualistic abuse and trauma. The more I learn, the greater God becomes.

He’s answering my prayer of years ago. He’s showing me that no matter what the Enemy, the Father of Lies, the Evil One, concocts through human agents, God (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) is able and willing and powerful to restore.

If you have been trapped by dark-side abuses, struggling to be free, invite Jesus into your situation. Cry out for help. Believe in Love’s way. It probably won’t happen overnight, but one step at a time, the light of Love will dispel the darkness. Then stand back and be amazed at the power of His might.

He sent from above, he took me, he drew me out of many waters. He delivered me from my strong enemy, and from them which hated me: For they were too strong for me. They prevented me in the day of my calamity, but the Lord was my stay. He brought me forth also into a large place. He delivered me, because he delighted in me.

Psalms 18:16-19

*Rose-Marie is the fictional name I’ve given myself in my yet-to-be-published book, “Heartache of Promise.” The story is based on a section of my life, so yeah, Rose-Marie is yours-truly.

Of Tadpoles, Creeks, and Choosing Love…

It didn’t matter what she did, it wasn’t good enough.

Evangeline let the door slam behind her. Her mop of curls bounced auburn at her forehead. Stones nipped the callouses on her bare feet, but there were no stupid rules along the creek bank.

Turtles and tadpoles didn’t care if she drank eight ounces of warm water first thing. They never forgot to turn on the cold for three minutes before they left the shower.

Those daisies along the path—pure-white petals sparkling with morning dew—weren’t concerned about going to church to have old ladies with hardened eyes check their skirt length or note if they’d painted their nails.

The remains of her father’s mandatory raw almonds stuck to her teeth. Her tongue raked them loose. She spit.

If God was this, there had to be a different choice.

* * *

It mattered what she did when it came to others.

Evangeline rose from her desk of polished walnut and glanced at her watch. Lunch with the mayor in fifteen minutes. A slip of joy coursed her heart. Together they would accomplish nothing but good. Kids would enter college. Single moms would find meaningful employment. The arts would be funded.

Three teenagers smiled up from a desk photo. Her children. How she loved them. She patted at her curls, then shrugged into her tailored jacket, but no straight-jacket religion for them. Church was optional.

Oh, she had done the church thing and gotten burned and betrayed in the process. No bitterness, though. She did have a choice about that. She did have a choice to love.

Choices—logical, well-considered…and helpful—impacted lives. Now and for the future.

God’s rules and expectations only muddied the water.

* * *

What had mattered most?

Cradling her coffee, Evangeline settled onto her porch swing. She tugged at a wisp of gray, then flipped the strand away from her face.

 A rosy dawn eased over the mirrored surface of the lake. Her favorite view. She lifted her cup and breathed in the soothing aroma.

An empty nest. Retirement.  Financial security. A healthy, still active body. A husband, asleep inside, whom she wouldn’t call a soul-mate, but could always admire. Siblings who waded with her out of their shared spiritual abuse….

Through it all, had she found her own identity? Or was it mixed with expectations that made demands from her parents’ graves?

A kingfisher skimmed the water’s surface. Its squeal of freedom echoed the shoreline. She shook her head, feeling the curls. When she looked within, whom did she see?   

I’m a woman who’s chosen love, and that is good.

Along with her sip of coffee, the truth slid its warmth through her body.

I don’t know about God, but I’ve chosen love.

* * *

“God is love.”

1 John 4:8

“…Everyone that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.”

I John 4:7

Treasures of Darkness

It’s dark on top of our hill out here in the country—miles from any town. Very dark, with no electricity. I love to sleep in total darkness, but I don’t want to live in it. I slip away from my bed and wander outside.

I’ve been interacting with survivors of childhood trauma who are desperate for answers, resources, hope…anything to bring them relief.  I think of them, as, high above, myriads of stars shine their glory.

A verse at the front of the story I’m currently writing comes to mind:

“And I will give thee treasures of darkness, and hidden riches of secret places, that thou mayest know that I, the Lord, which call thee by thy name, am the God of Israel.”

Isaiah 45:3 KJV

“Okay, Lord God, I’m trying to hear You, but….”

Is there anything darker than the mind of one abused in childhood? Especially abuse mixed with religion that disfigures Your very character? Is there any place more impossible for light to reach?

How can riches be hidden in a heart that has absorbed the evilness and lies of the perpetrator—when the only “secret places” are the secrets one is forced to keep? When one’s personal identity is obliterated with each cruelty, what, please tell, is this name of which You speak?

His stars blink back a silent answer of constancy. Perhaps the morning will bring answers. If only there were a manual.

I text my sister. “Can you recommend a resource I can share?”

Within minutes her reply glows on my phone:

“From my experience, without God, you have no way to really know what you even need. Your abuse doesn’t come with a recovery manual.

God created you. Only He knows who you were created to be. But you can be certain it wasn’t to be abused. All of us have been lied to because it’s lying people who abuse. And because of that, I knew only God was big enough–was wise enough, was safe enough and true and faithful enough to trust with my story and to write a different ending than the only one I thought possible.

He was the only one willing to love me enough to die for me, but more important to live for me every day and work out all I needed.

His promises had power and hope and the outcome only He could create one step at a time. One question at a time. One tear at a time. His love is what has broken down all my walls and fulfilled my dreams better than I could have imagined. And He doesn’t stop! Healing from Him covers all the need and raises me up to more than I knew possible.

You want a manual? Just walk with Him. He has the pathway all planned and ready. And He will only go as fast as you are ready to go and slow enough to give you all the processing you need. He will only lead you, never push you.”

I turn off my phone and sleep until sunlight rises over the eastern mountain and splashes the tops of the trees outside. Bird song floats through the cool breeze. I breathe deep and, from a grateful heart, whisper a prayer.

God’s healing power to reconcile through Jesus Christ—to restore and make whole—is the a treasure that can shine from the darkness of abuse.

Of course, He uses therapists and those who have studied the workings of the brain, the effects of trauma on a child, but it is His love that does the healing, restores identity, and calls us by name.

Paul (2 Corinthians 4:6&7) refers to this treasure as the “light that God commanded to shine out of darkness.” He said this treasure has been put in the earthen vessels of our hearts to shine and give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, who, it turns out, is an accurate depiction of God’s character.

Through His love and acceptance, God provides healing. He will walk alongside through the fear of remembering. He will call you by name, and you won’t be afraid to answer. His Treasures of Darkness and Hidden Riches are there for the asking.

The path of the righteous is like the morning sun, shining ever brighter till the full light of day.  But the way of the wicked is like deep darkness; they do not know what makes them stumble.”

Psalms 4:18 and 19 NIV

Savior of Memories

A little box of baby things are tucked away wrapped in plastic, safe in a drawer. Whenever I open that drawer, I imagine a mother crocheting a blue sweater and booties, fashioning a delicate crocheted cap, and hand stitching simple flannel socks. I thumb through booklets on baby care copyrighted in 1932 and wonder what it would have been to be an expectant mother in that era.

A few cards adorned with dimpled babies are in that box as well, wishing all the best. There is a soft baby brush, and a baby pillow case  — again with crocheted edging. Wrapped in tissue are locks of auburn curls, an exact match to my son’s hair.

When I close the drawer, it is a mother I think of, a young mother, who cherished and saved memories of her boy.That mother is dead now, as is her son, but her act lives on in all the other mothers who save memories.

Baby clothes

We parents experience our children from a unique viewpoint. We witness their birth. We delight in each step of their growth. When we capture these memories to share with them later, we help to complete our children’s identities. We give them the gift of themselves.

I save many of my memories with a camera. But one evening, years back when my son was six or so and he and his Shih Tzu puppy, Lassie, needed a romp, my camera was not handy.

“Pull me on the blanket, Momma. Round and round. Yeah!” There was no resisting his nodding head and sparkling eyes.

He pulled an old blanket out of the closet and settled himself in its middle. Clutching two corners, I whizzed him over the hardwood floor, through the kitchen, past the dining room, and around the living room. Lassie, ever alert, pounced with furry paws and clung to the blanket. Around and around we went — Lassie, spread eagle, stomach sliding, then losing her grip and pouncing again. My son howled and squealed with delight. His every fiber throbbed.

The magic moment snapped like a camera flash and burned into my memory. I developed the picture and added it to my mental scrapbook.

Scrap Book

I love the fact that God savors His children’s precious moments and writes them in his own Book of Remembrance.

On the day when he makes up his jewels, he will settle me on his lap and I’ll be like a child who loves to look at her baby pictures. Snuggled close, my heavenly daddy and I will leaf through his scrapbook. He will show me how he cherished the choices I made for him. He will expand my understanding of myself by sharing his point of view. He will explain the decisions he had to make as my parent. He will complete my identity by giving me the gift of myself.

My daughter and boys

“Then they that feared the Lord spake often one to another: and the Lord hearkened, and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before him for them that feared the Lord, and that thought upon His name. And they shall be Mine, saith the Lord of hosts, in that day when I make up My jewels; and I will spare them, as a man spares his own son that serves him.” — Malachi 3:16 & 17 (KJV)

What memories of your life would you like to see in God’s scrapbook?  Please share!

This is Me and I am Free

“That’s your handwriting,” you say after two decades of no mail.
Terrible handwriting. Too jerky, too tense. I’ve hated it.
But you are glad and now I am a school girl practicing my name.
This is mine. This is me and I am free.
Loops rounding out the tails in letters spilling.
How I form them tells you who I am —
Tells me who I am.
I’d rather write than type.
I’d rather you see my hand working down the line
Caressing the page
Soothing the sounds like musical notes of ecstasy for you to play
And then return with yours.

hand writing

“This is Me and I am Free . . . .”

I was twenty-eight when I wrote those lines. Twenty-eight, with years of wondering behind me. Years of wondering what I would be when I grew up. Not that many people asked. I was a middle child after all, elbowing my way out of the nest packed with three other siblings. Except for mothering, uh, bossing, my younger brother, I was the quiet one trying to live up to others expectations. What I would become seemed inconsequential, really.

In very early childhood there were isolated, yet contemptible acts inflicted on me that I was forbidden to acknowledge. The forced hiding had snuffed my heart’s honesty, teaching it to disown itself.

Well-meaning words that edged me toward denial had also been dropped:
“You shouldn’t feel that way. . . .That’s not what God would want . . . . Just lift the corners of your mouth and make-believe you’re glad . . . . Why don’t you get over it?”

An identity was not easy to come by.

“I am ____________,” was a difficult sentence to finish.

Fortunately, despite it all, I believed in the Great I AM. He knew, without asking, what I would be when I grew up. Throughout my roles of student, secretary, wife and mother, He drew me to Him, letting me get to know Him so that I could know myself.

Then, in my twenty-eighth year, my day of freedom came. I saw my heart’s truth. I walked out of denial. I obeyed Him. Because I obeyed Him, I experienced unconditional Love. It was a Love that I could trust. It was a Love that allowed me to be vulnerable.

So I wrote.

This is me, and I am               free              

All thanks to the great I AM.

 

Have you been freed to know who you are?  Please share how Love has played a part in your freedom.

 “And you shall know the truth,and the truth shall make you free.” John 8:32

God in the Ultimates

There was a time when I longed for an ideal, romantic love. My life story seemed to prove that it didn’t exist. Consequently, I thought that perhaps God didn’t exist. My pinpoint of a beam, searching for the truth about Him, grew dim as it swept the darkness.

Finally, like the young woman in The Heart of Rose-Marie, I cried in desperation:

Image of Husband & Wife Holding hands at altar

“God, I’m tired of spiritual limbo. Your way has to work in every circumstance, for real problems. That’s what I want to test.”

My discourse with the All Mighty began:

“So what is faith?”

“It’s naked trust, and I haven’t had much experience.”

“What kind of experience do you need?”

Experience with trusting in the ultimates.”

What are the ultimates?”

Life, death, health, economic security. An ultimate for me is to find my reason to be, who I am, my place of belonging. Another ultimate is to love and be loved. God, for Your way to mean anything, I want it tested in these ultimates.”

From that day on, I began to search for situations where God’s way was tested and worked. I began to interpret my  life experiences through the lens of Him proving His way in my joys and challenges. I began to recognize the genuine, ideal Love that was working in my heart.

I began to get to know Him.

The better I know, the better I can trust. Even in the ultimates.

So, how has God proven His way to you personally, in your ultimates? Especially in matters of your heart. How have you gotten to know Him?

“In him we live and move and have our being.”  Acts 17:28

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