I can only imagine…. What real Godly love can do. - March 18, 2018

It has been too long since I have written on this blog. I have many things that I want to say because I have gone through so much since I last wrote on here.  Right now this is the most pressing thing on my heart so its going to be long but I think its going to be real good.

I want to go see “I can only imagine” today. Its a story about a fathers who was a Monster. However, this Monster changed into a Godly man but by the time the son forgave him he lost so much time with him. I have been crying ever since I watched the movie an hour ago. You see I had an amazing father who inspired me and made me believe I could be the best version of me. He pushed me and loved me and believed in me. So on that leave I can not relate. But I can relate on the level of being a monster and having God transform me. This is my story and how God is transforming the Monster in me.

My heart has been hurting for the last few weeks because God has shown me something. His church has forgotten how to love.  It breaks my heart to see that Christians can be the most unloving, judgmental, broken, and hurting people out there. I wonder how can this be when we love a God that gives us so much freedom and love. However, this week I was so angry that a owner would put her dog in a overhead in a plane just because someone told her to. I called her names and just felt so much anger towards her. It was silly I know but I love animals and this seemed so senseless. As I was praying and worshiping with my Thursday group I could not get into the worship because of my anger towards a women I did not know. Finally, something broke and I saw a vision. I was in an airport and i turned to my right to see everyday people getting there bags and on the left I saw a gun men pointing his gun at people ready to shoot. All of a sudden I realized I did not feel hate for the people on the right or the shooter on the left. I felt brokenness. I felt pain from both sides. In my vision I screamed…STOP THIS MADNESS DON’T YOU SEE ALL WE NEED TO DO IS LOVE EACH OTHER. I realized something after that. I am mad and calling a women names after she want through a tragic event. If I want to show this women love real Godly love I have to mourn with her, love her and lift her up. I cant hate, call names and put someone down. That is what the world is doing and look at what we have. A world were human life is not valued and going to the airport, movies, school or church is no longer safe. A world that is hurting for: love, to be noticed, to be valued, to be considered worthy. We cant keep judging, hurting and pushing our pain on others it is destroying us. It is turning us into monsters.

I want through a situation a few months ago where I did not feel that I was treated fairly. It broke my heart. I began to picked up hate, anger and pain from a person who said they loved God but still destroyed me feels and heart.  I replayed the situation in my mind over and over again. I talked bad about them getting people on my side to prove they were wrong. The whole time I was in pain and I felt so bad about myself. I started picking up old habits I had long been healed of. I was a hot mess. I decided after a few weeks of this that enough was enough and I needed God to heal me. A Godly friend of mine told me true forgiveness was forgetting the situation and letting go. Not talking about it, not telling it to other people, not holding it against them. So I gave it to God and tried to forget about it. It was then an only then that I could stomach being around this person again. I started praying for them again. I started to send them encouraging words again. Then I realized I started loving them for the first time. Not because they deserved it (they in fact only made things worse with there actions) but because God loved them and he loved me and he wanted me to love them. It was then and only then that I had true freedom. Although God has not reopened the friendship it is not a wound to me it is not my hurt.

After that situation God has shown me how to love. Even when someone doesn’t deserve it. Even when it is hard, or if it cost me something. It also, allowed me to be more emotional and real with people. It allowed me to surrender my heart and my lies for a heart of truth and love. God has began a work in me and I have already been used in several situations. All because I allowed him to take me hurt and my monsters to open my heart up to others and love them.

See hurt people hurt people. They don’t even realize they do it. It turns you into a monster destroying the people or general population of people that remind you of them. You refuse to deal with the pain because hey “I am only hurting myself, right”. But the truth is no… you are hurting others, God and his kingdom.  You are making yourself a hypocrite and making the kingdom of God look bad. Yes, let that sink in but don’t beat yourself up. In the situation above I was destroying this persons reputation and being mean to them as well. I was hurting them and the kingdom of God. But when I want to God with my pain. When I no longer took that pain as my identity and surrendered it to God, he healed it. He made me more loving and I could feel his love for me more. See pain becomes a wound, a wound becomes hurt, hurt people hurt people, then people hurt us again because we hurt them. Then the cycle just repeats itself over and over again. But the cycle doesn’t have to keep going God can disrupt the cycle. He can provide healing and bless you more then you can imagine. God wants to heal you. My question is are you ready to lay your hurt down so God can heal you and you can live the life he always intended you to have?

I close with this. We cant be like this anymore church. We have to Love. It does not say the fruit of the spirits (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control) and then say and the greatest of theses are to judge, or to prove you are right, or to have power. It says the greatest of these are LOVE.. Imagine what this world would look like if Christians were who they said they were. If they gave more money then anyone else. If they helped at more homeless shelters, or open there home up to people in need even if it disrupted their lives. What if there were more Christians that loved, prayed for and helped the gay community rather then attack them and protest them. What if more Christians showed up to help a friend who is struggling with addictions then stood up at street corners with signs that say YOU ARE GOING TO HELL. What if we actually loved like God did. Wouldn’t that be a lovely world.